Reversed planar elongation of soft polymeric networks

The newly developed planar elongation fixture, designed as an add-on to the filament stretch rheometer, is used to measure reversible large amplitude planar elongation on soft elastomers. The concept of this new fixture is to elongate an annulus, by keeping the perimeter constant. The deformation on the cylindrical probe is measured using digital imaging, and it is found that the diameter only changes a few percent compared with the initial diameter.

Additionally, it is found that a time-strain separable K-BKZ model based on a Doi–Edwards (DE) network strain (without independent alignment) captures the experimental data well. In particular, it is observed that it reproduces the deformation on the cylindrical probe, and this observation confirms our previous statement that the deformation on the cylindrical probe is highly sensitive towards the choice of strain tensor.

The stress itself is well described by both the modified Lodge and the DE network strain. The amount of work needed during the deformation is calculated, and it is illustrated how the sample itself contributes with work upon flow reversal. As the stress is time-strain separable the energy loss originates from linear viscoelastic relaxation even in the nonlinear regime, and the loss can be determined solely from linear viscoelastic measurements.