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

A Rouse model for polymer chains is incorporated into the linear continuous stickslip 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 stressstrain 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.