A Stick-Slip/Rouse Hybrid Model for Viscoelasticity in Polymers

Abstract A Rouse model for polymer chains is incorporated into the linear continuous stick-slip molecular-based tube reptation ideas of Doi–Edwards and Johnson–Stacer. This treats the physically constrained (PC) molecular stretches as internal strain variables for the overall PC/chemically cross-linked (CC) system. It yields an explicit system of stress–strain equations for the system permitting simple calculations of complex stress–strain relations. The model that is developed here treats PC molecule as entrapped within a constraining tube, which is comprised of both CC and PC molecules. The model is compared with experimental data sets from the literature.