Abstract
From the experimental results of the present investigation, it is apparent that two kinds of networks which have a different three-dimensional network structure give quite different behavior of chemical stress relaxation, even if both networks have the same network chain density. The difference in three-dimensional network structure for the two kinds of rubber arises from the degree of entanglement, which changes with the concentration of the polymer chains prior to the crosslinking process. The direct cause of chemical relaxation is due to the scission of network chains by degradation, whereas the total relaxation is caused by the change of geometrical conformation of network chains. This then casts doubt on the basic concept of chemorheology which is represented by Equation 2.
Assessment of recent thermo-chemical relaxation models using the DLR-TAU code
