Nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of styrene‐[ethylene‐(ethylene‐propylene)]‐styrene block copolymer

Abstract

AbstractStudies on the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of styrene‐[ethylene‐(ethylene‐propylene)]‐styrene block copolymer (SEEPS) were carried out. The nonlinear viscoelastic region was determined through dynamic strain sweep test, and the critical shear strain (γc) of transition from linear viscoelastic region to nonlinear viscoealstic region was obtained. The relaxation time and modulus corresponding to the characteristic relaxation modes were also acquired through simulating the linear relaxation modulus curves using Maxwell model, and the damping functions were evaluated. Meanwhile, it is found that the nonlinear relaxation modulus obtained at relatively low shear strains follows the strain–time separation principle, and the damping function of SEEPS can be fit to Laun double exponential model well. Moreover, the successive start‐up of shear behavior, the steady shear behavior, and the relaxation behavior after steady shear were investigated, respectively. The results showed that Wagner model, derived from the K‐BKZ (Kearsley‐Bernstein, Kearsley, Zapas) constitutive equation, could simulate the experiment data well, and in addition, experiment data under the lower shear rates are almost identical with the fitting data, but there exists some deviation for data under considerable high shear rates. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 1309–1319, 2006