Solid‐State Constitutive Modelling of Glassy Polymers: Coupling the Rolie‐Poly Equations for Melts with Anisotropic Viscoplastic Flow

This paper investigates the behaviour of a well‐characterised monodisperse grade of entangled atactic polystyrene across a very wide temperature and strain rate range through linear and non‐linear melt rheology and solid‐state deformation. In an effort to construct a constitutive model for large deformations able to describe rheological response right across this wide timescale, two well‐established rheological models are combined: the well known RoliePoly (RP) conformational melt model and the Oxford glass‐rubber constitutive model for glassy polymers. Comparisons between experimental data and simulations from a numerical implementation of the model illustrate that the model can cope well with the range of deformations in which orientation is limited to length‐scales longer than an entanglement length. One approach in which the model can be expanded to incorporate the effects of orientation on shorter length scales using anisotropic viscoplastic flow is briefly discussed.