Modelling an anomalous stress relaxation in glassy polymers (the Kitagawa effect)

Constitutive relations are derived for the nonlinear viscoelastic response of glassy polymers. The model is based on the concept of adaptive links (a version of the theory of transient networks), where the rates of annihilation of active links are determined by the Eyring formula. Adjustable parameters in the constitutive equations are found by using experimental data for a polyester resin in standard relaxation tests. The stress-strain relations are applied to describe an anomalous stress relaxation in solid polymers observed in tensile test after strain reversal (the Kitagawa effect). Qualitative agreement is demonstrated between results of numerical simulation and observations.