Polymer Engineering and Science, Vol.41, No.6, 977-981, 2001
Prediction of long-term service performance of polymeric materials from short-term tests: Creep and prediction of the stress shift factor of a longitudinal polymer liquid crystal
The material studied is a longitudinal polymer liquid crystal (PLC). The creep behavior of the PLC is examined in the region of nonlinear viscoelasticity. The creep compliance D curves at nine different stress sigma levels, from 10 to 50 J.cm(-3) at a constant temperature are determined and shifted along the log time axis for sigma (ref) = 10 J.cm(-3) to produce the D versus t/a(sigma) master curve. A fairly general formula for stress shift factor a(sigma) based on free volume v(f) and the chain relaxation capability (CRC) derived by one of the authors is applied. The formula predicts values that agree with the experimental ones within the limits of the experimental accuracy. Thus, experiments at several stress levels can serve for prediction of longterm behavior from short-term tests. The same value of the Doolittle constant B is obtained separately from temperature shift and stress shift experiments for the PLC.