Long-term service performance of polymeric materials from short-term tests: prediction of the stress shift factor from a minimum of data

We use the time-stress correspondence (TSC) principle and consider creep co mpliance D data for a polymer liquid crystal (PLC). A master compliance plo t is created from two stress sigma levels only; the lower stress level is t he reference while the other set is shifted on the logarithmic time axis. T he master plot so created is quite close to that constructed after a signif icant amount of experimentation at several cr levels. A formula for stress shift factor a(sigma) obtained by one of us is applied for the prediction o f a, values for the other sigma levels. Again, a low level is used as the r eference while D values for two higher sigma levels are used in calculation s. The predicted a(sigma) values agree with the experimental ones within th e limits of the experimental accuracy. Very close values of the Doolittle c onstant B are obtained from different subsets of minimum amounts of results and also from the full set of experiments for nine stress levels. The accu racy of the results is affected by the stress range covered (a wider range gives better results) but not by the amount of data used. (C) 2001 Publishe d by Elsevier Science Ltd.