Why the Cox-Merz rule and Gleissle mirror relation work: A quantitative analysis using the Wagner integral framework with a fractional Maxwell kernel

In this work, we mathematically derive the conditions for which empirical rheometric relations such as the Cox-Merz rule and Gleissle mirror relationship are satisfied. We consider the Wagner integral constitutive framework, which is a special limiting case of the Kaye-Bernstein Kearsley Zapas (K-BKZ) constitutive equation to derive analytical expressions for the complex viscosity, the steady shear viscosity, and the transient stress coefficient in the start-up of steady shear. We use a fractional Maxwell liquid model as the linear relaxation modulus or memory kernel within a non-linear integral constitutive framework. This formulation is especially well-suited for describing complex fluids that exhibit a broad relaxation spectrum and can be readily reduced to the canonical Maxwell model for describing viscoelastic liquids that exhibit a single dominant relaxation time. To incorporate the nonlinearities that always become important in real complex fluids at large strain amplitudes, we consider both an exponential damping function as well as a more general damping function. By evaluating analytical expressions for small amplitude oscillatory shear, steady shear, and the start-up of steady shear using these different damping functions, we show that neither the Cox-Merz rule nor the Gleissle mirror relation can be satisfied for materials with a single relaxation mode or narrow relaxation spectrum. We then evaluate the same expressions using asymptotic analysis and direct numerical integration for more representative complex fluids having a wide range of relaxation times and nonlinear responses characterized by damping functions of exponential or Soskey-Winter form. We show that for materials with broad relaxation spectra and sufficiently strong strain-dependent damping the empirical Cox-Merz rule and the Gleissle mirror relations are satisfied either exactly, or to within a constant numerical factor of order unity. By contrast, these relationships are not satisfied in other classes of complex viscoelastic materials that exhibit only weak strain-dependent damping or strain softening.

Duke Scholars

Author Bavand Keshavarz Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materia ...