Abstract
Damping functions of entangled polymers for shear, uniaxial, biaxial, and planar deformations, as well as normal stress ratios for shear deformations, were obtained from Brownian simulations making use of the primitive chain network model. To investigate the effect of the force balance over the entanglements and of the convective constraint release mechanism, comparisons with predictions of earlier theories and with experimental data in the literature were performed. It was found that the obtained damping functions are close to the three-chain theory [Marrucci, Greco, and Ianniruberto, Macromol Symp, 158, 57 (2000)] suggesting that the force balance is a dominant correction over the basic Doi-Edwards theory as compared with the effect of convective constraint release. Furthermore, the predicted normal stress ratio in shear, i.e., a quantity very sensitive to the different assumptions, is in good agreement with experiments, suggesting that the combination of force balance, convective constraint release, and other relaxation modes, as accounted for through the primitive chain network model, is quite acceptable.
