Paper Number
SM29 

Session
Polymer Solutions & Melts

Title
Design and intuition with continuous spectra

Presentation Date and Time
February 15, 2017 (Wednesday) 10:25

Track / Room
Track 5 / Snowy Egret

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Corman, Rebecca E. (University of Illinois, Mechanical Science and Engineering)
2. Ewoldt, Randy H. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mechanical Science and Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Rebecca E. Corman and Randy H. Ewoldt
Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801

Speaker / Presenter 
Corman, Rebecca E.

Text of Abstract
Design is often based on intuition. How can we improve our intuition so that we can better engineer and design with viscoelastic polymeric materials? Intuition here is challenging because even linear viscoelastic properties are function-valued, rather than constants as they are for more simple fluids and solids. Here, we consider the various representations of linear viscoelasticity (oscillatory, step, spectra) for (i) tactile intuition which is known to improve design quality, and (ii) design-appropriate predictive modeling to enable optimization and inverse problem solutions. We propose that continuous spectra, including relaxation spectra H(τ) and retardation spectra L(τ), may prove to be a key link between viscoelastic material behavior and our intuition to design these materials. Simple parameterizations, such as log-normal distributions, provide a particularly low-dimensional description of the high-dimensional viscoelastic behavior. Moreover, the concept of relaxation spectra connects directly to microstructural design in systems of polymer melts and solutions. This will allow for greater ease when understanding these systems and likewise for tuning system parameters for use-specific design.