On thermal effects in a special class of viscoelastic fluids

Abstract

It is known that certain polymeric materials, such as polymeric solutions and melts, flow like fluids while they strongly exhibit recovery usually associated with viscoelastic solids. Moreover, the behavior of these materials is highly influenced by their flow and temperature history. Some available experimental observations [see, e.g., Ferry (1)] indicate that the temperature dependence of these viscoelastic fluids may be described adequately by incorporating the notion of “temperature-time equivalence” in their constitutive relations. The “temperature-time equivalence” has been utilized previously in a thermodynamic study of a class of viscoelastic solids (2) and include as a special case results appropriate for “thermo-rheologically simple” solids (3)¹).