Recent results on the analysis of viscoelastic constitutive equations

Recent results obtained for the port-pom model and the constitutive equations with time-strain separability are examined. The time-strain separability in viscoelastic systems Is not a rule derived from fundamental principles but merely a hypothesis based on experimental phenomena, stress relaxation at long times. The violation of separability in the short-time response just after a step strain is also well understood (Archer, 1999). In constitutive modeling, time-strain separability has been extensively employed because of its theoretical simplicity and practical convenience. Here we present a simple analysis that verifies this hypothesis inevitably incurs mathematical inconsistency in the viewpoint of stability. Employing an asymptotic analysis, we show that both differential and integral constitutive equations based on time-strain separability are either Hadamard-type unstable or dissipative unstable. The conclusion drawn in this study is shown to be applicable to the Doi-Edwards model (with independent alignment approximation). Hence, the Hadamardtype instability of the Doi-Edwards model results from the time-strain separability in its formulation, and its remedy may lie in the transition mechanism from Rouse to reptational relaxation supposed by Doi and Edwards. Recently in order to describe the complex rheological behavior of polymer melts with long side branches like low density polyethylene, new constitutive equations called the port-pom equations have been derived in the integral/differential form and also in the simplifled differential type by McLeish and carson on the basis of the reptation dynamics with simplifled branch structure taken into account. In this study mathematical stability analysis under short and high frequency wave disturbances has been performed for these constitutive equations. It is proved that the differential model is globally Hadamard stable, and the integral model seems stable, as long as the orientation tensor remains positive definite or the smooth strain history in the flow is previously given. However cautious attention has to be paid when one employs the simplified version of the constitutive equations without arm withdrawal, since neglecting the arm withdrawal immediately yields Hadamard instability. In the flow regime of creep shear flow where the applied constant shear stress exceeds the maximum achievable value in the steady flow curves, the constitutive equations exhibit severe instability that the solution possesses strong discontinuity at the moment of change of chain dynamics mechanisms.