Modeling the Fundamental Viscoelastic Properties of Polylactic Acid (PLA) and PLA/Nanocomposites in a Unified Manner

The description of various loading types within the frame of viscoelasticity, such as creep-recovery and stress relaxation in a wide time scale, by means of the same model and similar model parameters is always an interesting topic. In the present work, a viscoelastic model that was analyzed in previous works has been utilized to describe the main standard loading types of viscoelasticity with the same set of model parameters. The relaxation function of this model includes a distribution function followed by the energy barriers that need to be overcome by the molecular domains when a stress field is applied. This distribution function attains a decisive role in the analysis and it was shown that it can be determined on the basis of the loss modulus master curve experimental results. Thereafter, requiring no additional parameters, the creep compliance, the relaxation modulus of poly-lactic acid (PLA) in a wide time scale, as well as creep-recovery at various stresses could be predicted. It was also found that by employing the distribution function associated with the PLA matrix, the creep-recovery experimental data of PLA/hybrid nanocomposites could subsequently be predicted. Therefore, the proposed analysis was shown to be a useful method to predict the material's viscoelastic response.