The time and temperature dependences of the stress recovery of Ecoflex polymer

Abstract

Ecoflex silicone rubbers, served as the polymeric components of flexible electronic devices, actuators, energy converters, etc., are subjected to repetitive loadings during their service lives. The resulting stress softening and stress recovery phenomena can impose complicated impacts on their actual performances. Therefore, the importance of a better understanding of these phenomena needs to be stressed. In this contribution, we focus on the stress recovery behaviour of the Ecoflex silicone rubber in consideration of time and temperature dependences. Our findings show the time–temperature equivalence of the stress recovery behaviour. Based on the experimental study, a constitutive model is developed at finite strains using the Time–Temperature Superposition (TTS) principle to capture both the time and temperature dependences of the stress recovery behaviour of Ecoflex.