Shear creep and recovery of a technical polystyrene

The torsional creep and recoverable bahaviour of a technical polystyrene is reported over seven orders of magnitude of the value of the compliance from 10^–8 to 10^–1 Pa^–1 and over more than seven decades in time. The results for the recoverable compliance J_R (t) reveal a dispersion region seen between the glass transition and the steady-state recoverable compliance J_e. The limiting value of the final dispersion J_e = 4.7 · 10^–4 Pa^–1 indicates a broad molecular-weight distribution. The steady-state recoverable compliance J_e is independent of the temperature. The temperature dependence of the final dispersion was found to be indistinguishable from that of viscous flow. However, this temperature dependence differs significantly from that of the glass-rubber transition. A proposal has been made for the construction of creep compliance and recoverable compliance over an extended time scale.