A constitutive model for the nonlinear viscoelastic viscoplastic behavior of glassy polymers

Two features of the glassy state of an amorphous polymer, which play a key role in determining its mechanical properties, are the distributed nature of the microstructural state and the thermally activated (temporal) evolution of this state. In this work, we have sought to capture these features in a mechanistically motivated constitutive model by considering a distribution in the activation energy barrier to deformation in a thermally activated model of the deformation process. We thus model what is traditionally termed the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior as an elastic‐inelastic transition, where the energetically distributed nature of inelastic events and their evolution with straining is taken into account. The thermoreversible nature of inelastic deformation is modeled by invoking the notion of strain energy stored by localized inelastic shear transformations. The model results are compared to experimental data for constant true strain rate uniaxial compression tests (nonmonotonic) at different rates and temperatures; its predictive capabilities are further tested by comparison with compressive creep tests at different stress levels and temperatures.