Modeling non-linear rheology of PLLA: comparison of Giesekus and Rolie-Poly constitutive models

Abstract

Rheological models for biobased plastics can assist in predicting optimum processing parameters in industrial forming processes for biobased plastics and their composites such as film blowing, or injection stretch-blow molding in the packaging industry. Mathematical descriptions of polymer behavior during these forming processes are challenging, as they involve highly nonlinear, time-, temperature-, and strain-dependent physical deformation processes in the material, and have not been sufficiently tested against experimental data in those regimes. Therefore, the predictive capability of two polymer models, a classical Giesekus and a physically-based Rolie-Poly, is compared here for extensional and shear rheology data obtained on a poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) across a wide range of strain rates of relevance to those forming processes. Generally, elongational and shear melt flow behavior of PLLA was predicted to a satisfactory degree by both models across a wide range of strain rates (for strain rates 0.05–10.0 s−1), within the strain window up to 1.0. Both models show a better predictive capability for smaller strain rates, and no significant differences between their predictions were found. Hence, as the Giesekus model generally needs a smaller number of parameters, this class of models is more attractive when considering their use in computationally demanding forming simulations of biobased thermoplastics.