Viscoelasticity

Sheldon Imaoka
Memo Number: STI0807B
ANSYS Release: 11.0
June 8, 2008

Introduction

Viscoelastic constitutive models allow users to analyze the time-dependent

relaxation or creep behavior of materials, including glass, polymers, and solid
rocket propellants, to name a few. One may view viscoelastic materials as
containing an elastic and viscous component, similar to a spring and dashpot
in series. This memo will introduce viscoelastic input in ANSYS and as well
as cover curve-fitting procedures.

ANSYS Viscoelastic Models

There are two viscoelastic material models present in ANSYS. TB,EVISC

is associated with VISCO8x elements and is meant for hypoelastic behavior, implemented through generalized Maxwell elements. The WLF and
Narayanaswamy model, including fictive temperature, is available.
A relatively newer implementation for 18x elements1 is input via TB,PRONY,
which uses Prony series. The shift function is independently input via
TB,SHIFT. The Tool-Narayanaswamy and WLF shift functions are available.2 TB,PRONY supports both isotropic hypoelasticity and hyperelasticity.
Because of the advantages of being able to use hyperelasticity with viscoelasticity, along with the wider breadth of element types supported, the
TB,PRONY input method will be the focus of the remainder of this document.
It is worth noting that viscoelasticity can be considered in the frequency
domain as an imaginary component to the elastic modulus (the viscous por1
18x elements are LINK180, BEAM188-189, SHELL181, SHELL281, SHELL208-209,
PLANE182-183, SOLID185-187, SOLSH190
2
In ANSYS 12.0, fictive temperature and growth strain calculations are tentatively
planned to be added. When ANSYS 12.0 is released, please refer to the ANSYS 12.0
Release Notes for details.

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Viscoelasticity

tion provides a phase lag). This is implemented differently than TB,PRONY

or TB,EVISC, which are meant for solving in the time domain only. To define viscoelastic behavior in the frequency domain, one may use MP,DMPR or
TB,SDAMP to specify material damping.

Viscoelastic Implementation in ANSYS

When dealing with nonlinear material response, it is customary to separate

volumetric and deviatoric behavior. For hypoelastic materials, the volumetric response is characterized by the bulk modulus K whereas the shear
modulus G reflects the deviatoric behavior. The well-known relationships
with elastic modulus E and Poissons ratio are shown in Equations (1).
E
2(1 + )
E
K=
3(1 2)
G=

3.1

(1a)
(1b)

Prony Series

For viscoelastic materials, the time-dependent response is characterized by

separated volumetric and deviatoric terms, as shown in Equation (2). Here,
v is the scalar volumetric strain times the identity matrix and d is the
deviatoric strain tensor.
Z t
Z t
dd
dv
K(t t ) dt +
(t) =
2G(t t ) dt
(2)
dt
dt
0
0

The above integrals are evaluated for current time t based on past time t .
Also, K(tt ) and G(tt ) are not constant values, as they may be function
of time they are represented by Prony series:

G( ) = G0

"

nG
X

G
iG e i

i=1

K
K( ) = K0
+

nK
X
j=1

jK e

K
j

(3a)

(3b)

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Viscoelasticity

Two important items are worth discussing at this point. First of all,
the Prony series use relative moduli iG and iK to describe the stress relaxation. Hence, as will be reemphasized shortly, the user will not specify Gi
directly but iG instead the relationship of Gi = G0 iG is calculated by
ANSYS. The benefit of such an approach is that the user can easily change
the instantaneous modulus G0 to scale the response accordingly.3 The volumetric terms for K are treated in an analogous manner, although the user
can specify different number of terms nG and nK . If either bulk or shear
relaxation terms are not specified, they will be assumed to be constant (i.e.,
no relaxation for that term).
One may notice that Equation (3) is with respect to reduced or psuedo
time rather than current time t. The reason for this is explained in more
detail in Subsection 3.2, but a simple description is that temperature- and
time-dependent response may be related together hence, response at an elevated temperature may occur faster than at a lower temperature, so psuedo
time is used to describe this shift in time due to temperature. For cases
where no temperature-dependency is considered, one may substitute t for
in Equation (3).
To include stress relaxation effects, the user must input the following
parameters into ANSYS:
The instantaneous elastic modulus E and Poissons ratio are input
via MP,EX and MP,NUXY. If one knows the instantaneous shear modulus
G0 and bulk modulus K0 , one can use Equations (1) to calculate E
and . On the other hand, if the user is dealing with hyperelasticity,
the hyperelastic constants representing the instantaneous strength can
be entered with TB,HYPER. Recall that only isotropic hypoelastic or
hyperelastic behavior is currently supported with viscoelasticity.
Pairs of relative moduli i and relaxation time i are specified through
TB,PRONY. Shear and bulk behavior are defined independently if a
user wants only shear relaxation, for example, bulk relaxation need not
be specified.4 The user may input up to 100 pairs of Prony series each
for the deviatoric and volumetric response. The sum of the relative
moduli i must be less than or equal to 1.0 ( is not directly input
by the user but calculated from 1.0 i instead). If the material is
3

Note that relative moduli input for TB,PRONY is different from the constants used in
Gi
TB,EVISC, which are a ratio of G0 G
.

4
One should keep in mind that if only shear relaxation is defined, the bulk modulus
remains constant in other words, the effective Poissons ratio would increase towards
the value of 0.5, i.e., nearly-incompressible behavior.

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Viscoelasticity

assumed to lose all of its stiffness at infinite time, the sum would
be 1.0; on the other hand, if there is some stiffness that remains at
infinite time, the sum should equal to the difference between 1.0 and
the relative modulus at infinite time.

3.2

Time-Temperature Superposition

Temperature effects in viscoelasticity can be accounted for either (a) by

specifying temperature-dependent Prony coefficients i and i or (b) by
using a shift function A(T ). The use of a shift function allows users to
define a single master relaxation curve depending on the temperature,
this relaxation curve is shifted left or right, as illustrated in the figure
below:
1

800

720

640

560

480

400

320

240

T_HIGH
T_REF

160

T_LOW

80

0
1.0E-11
1.0E-09
1.0E-07
1.0E-05
1.0E-03
1.0E-01
1.0E+01
1.0E+03
1.0E+05
1.0E+07
1.0E-10
1.0E-08
1.0E-06
1.0E-04
1.0E-02
1.0E+00
1.0E+02
1.0E+04
1.0E+06

Comparison of Stress Relaxation for 3 Temperatures

Figure 1: Shear Modulus vs. log(Temperature)

One can see from Figure 1 that, as the temperature increases (T HIGH),
relaxation occurs more quickly. This assumption that a single relaxation
curve can be shifted to account for temperature effects is referred to as
being thermorheologically simple.
The shift function A(T ) scales the current time t based on temperature
effects, and this is called pseudo time . Alternatively, one may also view
the shift function as scaling the relaxaton time i , as shown in the following

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Viscoelasticity

relations:5

d =

tn+1

A T (t ) dt

tn

t
iG (Tr )
A (T (t)) = G
i (T )

A (T (t)) =

A (T (t)) =

iK (Tr )
iK (T )

(4a)
(4b)
(4c)
(4d)

Consequently, if one plots modulus vs. log(time) as shown in Figure 1, then

the value of log(A (T (t))) represents the value of the horizontal shifting of
the curve, as follows:

t
log(A (T (t))) = log( ) log(t)
A (T (t)) =

log( ) = log(t) + log(A (T (t)))

(5a)
(5b)
(5c)

Two commonly-used shift functions are the William-Landel-Ferry (WLF)

shift function and the Tool-Narayanaswamy (TN) shift function:
c1 (T Tr )
c2 + T Tr


1
1
ln (A (T ( ))) = d1

Tr
T

log (A (T ( ))) =

(6a)
(6b)

For the WLF shift function, shown in Equation (6a), Tr is the reference temperature while C1 and C2 are material constants. Although values
of C1 = 17.44 and C2 = 51.6 C are sometimes considered to be universal
constants for polymers when Tr is set to the materials glass transition temperature, the user may need to fit C1 and C2 values to measured test data.
Also, the imposed temperature should be greater than C2 Tr ; although this
value provides the cutoff below which the response is purely elastic, because
5
Please note that the definition of the shift function in ANSYS may differ from other
sources, where some other implementations use the inverse of A(T). Definitions of WLF
and TN constants, however, are typically the same.

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Viscoelasticity

of the nature of the WLF shift function, the resulting calculation for A(T )
will be unrealistic, so temperatures less than C2 Tr should be avoided.
The TN shift function, displayed in Equation (6b), is the Arrhenius
equation, so d1 = H
R , where H is the activation energy, and R is the ideal
gas constant. Like the WLF shift function, Tr represents the glass transition
temperature. However, unlike the WLF shift function, there is no discrete
temperature value differentiating elastic and viscoelastic behavior.
When either shift function is employed, one can see from Equation (6)
that, at the reference temperature Tr , A(T ) = 1. Phrased another way, the
master relaxation curve is used as-input at T = Tr whereas, at all other
temperatures, the relaxation curve is shifted according to A(T ).
1

(x10**5)

(x10**5)

3600

3600

3400

3400

3200

3200

3000

3000

2800

VALU

2800

VALU

2600

2400

2600

2400

2200

2200

2000

2000

T_HIGH
T_REF
T_LOW

1800

T_HIGH
T_REF
T_LOW

1800

1600

1600
1.0E-08 1.0E-06 1.0E-04 1.0E-02 1.0E+00 1.0E+02 1.0E+04 1.0E+06 1.0E+08 1.0E+10
1.0E-07 1.0E-05 1.0E-03 1.0E-01 1.0E+01 1.0E+03 1.0E+05 1.0E+07 1.0E+09

1.0E-08 1.0E-06 1.0E-04 1.0E-02 1.0E+00 1.0E+02 1.0E+04 1.0E+06 1.0E+08 1.0E+10
1.0E-07 1.0E-05 1.0E-03 1.0E-01 1.0E+01 1.0E+03 1.0E+05 1.0E+07 1.0E+09

TIME

TIME

Use of Shift Function

Use of Temperature-Dependent Constants

(a) Use of Shift Function

(b) Use of Temp-Dependent Constants

Figure 2: Comparison of Shift Function and Temperature-Dependent Constants

The choice of using temperature-dependent constants or a shift function

is up to the user. As seen in Figure 2, equivalent temperature-dependent
constants (by modifying i ) can be obtained from a given shift function.6
However, users should note that shift functions only shift the relaxation
curve horizontally (with respect to time). Temperature-dependent constants
allow users to redefine the relaxation moduli at different temperatures, although users can also include temperature-dependent elastic properties with
either method to change the instantaneous stiffness values.
Users requiring a different shift function can take advantage of the UsrShift.F subroutine, with material coefficients input via TB,SHIFT,,,,USER.

Two simple models, shift.inp and tdep.inp, are supplied with this memo

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Viscoelasticity

Curve-Fitting Material Data

Section 9.4 Viscoelastic Material Curve Fitting in Reference [1] contains

detailed information on performing viscoelastic curve-fitting in ANSYS, so
details of the procedure will not be reproduced here. Instead, only some
tips will be covered in this section.

4.1

Example 1

To better illustrate some concepts, data from Section 4.2 of Reference [4]
will be used. Table 1 lists the relaxation data of the master curve provided
from the paper:
Time
1e-7
1e-6
1e-5
1e-4
1e-3
1e-2
1e-1
1
1e1
1e2
1e3
1e4

Shear Modulus
433.62
300.20
210.14
153.44
118.41
96.73
83.39
73.38
66.71
60.04
56.04
50.00

Table 1: Propellant Shear Relaxation Data

If one uses six Prony pairs without initializing the constants, one may
notice that the curve-fitting routine will provide the following results:
iG
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.10

iG
6.35e-04
5.86e-04
9.39e-02
1.36e-01
6.17e-04
1.20e-01

Table 2: Curve-Fit Prony Data

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Viscoelasticity

1
Shear Decay Mode

440

400

360

320

280

240

200

160

120

80

40
1.0E-07

1.0E-05
1.0E-06

1.0E-03
1.0E-04

1.0E-01
1.0E-02

1.0E+01
1.0E+00

1.0E+03
1.0E+02

1.0E+04

Figure 3: Data vs. Curve-Fit

In Table 2, one may see that three pairs have roughly the same relaxation
time around 6e-4; also, the remaining three pairs have relaxation times near
0.1. This indicates that only two unique Prony pairs are really used, thus
explaining the poor fit shown in Figure 3. The input file for this case is
provided as propellant1.inp.
To obtain a better fit, the relaxation time values should be initialized to
help with this nonlinear curve-fitting routine. As described in Reference [1],
the relaxation times should based on evenly-spaced values of log(t) hence,
for this particular case, assuming the set name is prop1, the relaxation time
values can be initialized with the following ANSYS commands:
TBFT,SET,1,CASE,prop1,, 3,1e-7
TBFT,SET,1,CASE,prop1,, 5,1e-5
TBFT,SET,1,CASE,prop1,, 7,1e-3
TBFT,SET,1,CASE,prop1,, 9,1
TBFT,SET,1,CASE,prop1,,11,1e2
TBFT,SET,1,CASE,prop1,,13,1e4
The author prefers to take this a step further by fixing the i coefficients
for 100 or so iterations. Once the relative moduli i are calculated based
on these relaxation times, the author then allows i to vary in another 100
iterations. This procedure tends to provide much better fits. Also, the
default number of iterations of 1000 is often not required, although the user
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Viscoelasticity

should verify that the number of iterations is sufficient by checking that the
residuals have become low and stabilized (plateau) ANSYS prints the
coefficients and residuals at ten intervals in the Output File/Window. The
resulting comparison of the curve-fit data is shown in Figure 4.
1
Shear Decay Mode

440

400

360

320

280

240

200

160

120

80

40
1.0E-07

1.0E-05
1.0E-06

1.0E-03
1.0E-04

1.0E-01
1.0E-02

1.0E+01
1.0E+00

1.0E+03
1.0E+02

1.0E+04

Figure 4: Data vs. Curve-Fit with Initialized Values

Although the coefficients seem to fit the data quite well, in order to verify
that the behavior will be captured correctly, a simple 1-element analysis is
also run in the supplied input file, propellant2.inp. Note, however, that
the shear response is not smooth, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5 provides insight into two items: (a) if test data is limited (in
this example, Table 1 covers a range of 1e-7 to 1e4 with only twelve data
points), the curve-fit may be quite good on the limited number of points, but
behavior in-between test data may behave in an unexpected manner, and (b)
curve-fitting a wide range of time (in this case, eleven orders of magnitude)
may require additional number of Prony pairs (e.g., twelve pairs). The
author recommends using one Prony pair for each order of magnitude change
in time in the relaxation data.
The final adjustments for curve-fitting are reflected in the input file
propellant3.inp, where twelve Prony pairs are selected with all iG values
initialized appropriately. The test data also includes additional points. The
resulting response looks smooth plots at three temperatures are displayed
in Figure 6.
In Reference [4], the instantaneous elastic modulus was not specified. If
9

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Viscoelasticity

this data is available, it can be input directly with MP,EX. If a user wishes
to calculate the instantaneous modulus from the relaxation test data, one
can use Equation (3a) to determine G0 . For each test data point, the time
and shear modulus are known; the iG and iG values have been determined
from the curve-fitting procedure; and = 1.0 i , as noted earlier. If

440

400

360

320

280

VALU

240

200

160

120

80

T2

40
1.0E-05

1.0E-07
1.0E-06

1.0E-03
1.0E-04

1.0E-01
1.0E-02

1.0E+01
1.0E+00

1.0E+03
1.0E+02

1.0E+04

TIME

Figure 5: Results from Simple Test

1

800

720

640

560

480

VALU

400

320

240

T_661
160

T_414
80

T_535

0
1.0E-09
1.0E-07
1.0E-05
1.0E-03
1.0E-01
1.0E+01
1.0E+03
1.0E-11
1.0E-10
1.0E-08
1.0E-06
1.0E-04
1.0E-02
1.0E+00
1.0E+02
1.0E+04

TIME

Figure 6: Results with Twelve Prony Pairs

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Viscoelasticity

the curve-fit is very good (very low residuals), the G0 values calculated at
each data point will be the same; if not, one could use the average of the G0
values. From G0 and knowing the Poissons ratio, the elastic modulus E0
can be calculated. For the present example, G0 was estimated to be 538.45;
the paper indicated that the Poissons ratio was 0.499, so E0 = 1614.25.
It is important to remember that even if instantaneous moduli had been
provided separately, the user should verify that use of this supplied value
satisfies Equation (3a) for the given data points.

11

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4.2

Viscoelasticity

Example 2

Viton V747-75 stress relaxation data was taken from Reference [2]. Viton is
an elastomer typically used in O-rings. In Table 3, curve-fit data in ANSYS
is compared against those from the referenced paper for 15 Prony pairs.
ANSYS
iG
iG
0.01% 6.21e-8
40.00% 4.89e-6
29.80% 3.04e-5
17.54% 2.52e-4
4.53% 1.71e-3
2.82% 9.02e-3
1.37% 1.21e-1
0.72%
1.37
0.60%
1.64e1
0.37%
2.67e2
0.20%
1.38e3
0.19%
7.18e3
0.12%
5.75e4
0.19%
1.00e6
0.00%
1.00e7
1.54% infinite

Reference
iG
iG
51.29% 1.11e-5
24.55% 6.90e-5
12.36% 5.25e-4
4.38% 3.40e-3
1.95% 2.04e-2
1.07% 1.44e-1
0.68% 9.90e-1
0.50%
6.49
0.41%
3.93e1
0.32%
2.96e2
0.27%
1.73e3
0.16%
1.15e4
0.11%
8.08e4
0.12%
6.52e5
0.02%
1.39e6
1.79% infinite

Table 3: Comparison of Data

For the ANSYS-fit data, one may notice that the first and last Prony
pairs could be ignored, as they do not significantly contribute to the overall
response. (The same could be said of the last Prony pair supplied from
the reference.) One could have either restricted the ANSYS curve-fitting
to 13 pairs or changed the initialized time constants to obtain a better fit.
Hence, reviewing the relative moduli after curve-fitting is very useful to
(a) check for duplicate time constants or (b) check for Prony pairs providing
negligible response the user can then change the number of pairs or adjust
initialization values accordingly.
Simple uniaxial tests were run for these two cases in viton1.inp and
viton2.inp and presented in Figure 7. Note that the ANSYS-calculated
instantaneous shear modulus value (7500) is higher than that of the paper
(6700). This can be explained by referring to Figure 8, where the ANSYS
curve-fit coefficients seem to match the data points slightly better than the
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reference, explaining why the curve-fit coefficients presented in Table 3 are

not the same, which also produces differences in calculation of instantaneous
moduli.
Although it may be tempting to use relaxation data to calculate Prony
constants and to use another source for the direct input of instantaneous
moduli, the user is cautioned against doing so without first understanding the ramifications. Citing this example, one should not use ANSYScalculated Prony pairs, then use 6700 for the elastic modulus the response
would be underpredicted if this were done. Instead, the user may consider
adding an extra data point the first point may be (t0 , G0 ), where t0 is a
very small value, such as 1e-12 for this case. That would allow ANSYS to
curve-fit the test data using a known instantaneous modulus.
8000

7000

Exp Data
ANSYS

7000

Shear Modulus

6000
Shear Modulus

Exp Data
Paper

6000

5000
4000
3000
2000

5000
4000
3000
2000
1000

1000
0
1e-10

1e-05

1
Time

100000

0
1e-10

1e+10

(a) ANSYS

1e-05

1
Time

100000

1e+10

(b) Reference

7000
6500
6000
5500
5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1e-06

6500

Exp Data
ANSYS

Exp Data
Paper

6000
5500
Shear Modulus

Shear Modulus

Figure 7: Comparison of Constants from ANSYS and Reference

5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000

1e-05
Time

0.0001

(a) ANSYS

1500
1e-06

1e-05
Time

(b) Reference

Figure 8: Zoomed-in Comparison

13

0.0001

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4.3

Viscoelasticity

Example 3

With the time-temperature superposition principle discussed in Section 3.2,

one may choose to perform multiple tests at different temperatures when
testing over a long period of time is impractical.
When the thermorheologically simple assumption holds, one can construct a master curve from data taken at multiple temperatures, as demonstrated in Figure 9.
Temperature-Dependent Test Data and Master Curve
1000

-22.5 deg
-20 deg
-17.5 deg
-15 deg
-10 deg
0 deg
10 deg
25 deg
master curve

log(shear modulus)

100

10

0.1
0.01

100

10000
1e+06
log(time)

1e+08

1e+10

1e+12

Figure 9: Generation of a master curve from test data at different temperatures

The data in Figure 9 is of Hypalon-40 at 1.0 bar taken from Reference

[3]. The dotted curves represent tests at different temperatures in a given
time range viscoelastic materials change from a glassy to leathery
to rubbery region. For this example, the reference temperature is taken
to be 22.5 C, and the subsequent curves are shifted to the right to form
the master curve. The value of this shift is log(A)7 , displayed in the second
column (Actual Shift) in Table 4.
When one creates a master curve in this fashion, one should ensure that
the relaxation curves are plotted in log(time) or ln(time). As illustrated in
Equation (4b), the shift function is a multiplier on psuedo time . Instead
of determining the multiplier A(T ) of the curves, looking at the shift value
log(A(T )) or ln(A(T )) (see Equation (5c)) is typically much more straightfoward.
7

In this case, the WLF shift function is used. For the Arrhenius function, the natural
logarithm would be used instead.

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Temperature
-22.5
-20
-17.5
-15
-10
0
10
25

Actual Shift
0.00
0.95
1.50
2.35
4.00
6.10
6.60
7.60

WLF
0.00
0.90
1.69
2.40
3.60
5.40
6.70
8.07

Polynomial
0.00
0.93
1.77
2.54
3.86
5.74
6.80
7.55

Table 4: Shift values log(A) used to construct master curve

The other point to keep in mind is that the shift values need to be fit
against a shift function. For this data, both the WLF shift function and
a user-defined third-order polynomial shift function were used and listed in
Table 4. Note that from Figure 10, the actual log(A) values did not create
a smooth curve, so using either the WLF shift function or a user-defined
third-order polynomial equation did not provide an exact fit, although the
latter matched the actual values more closely.8
Shift Values
9

actual
wlf
poly

8
7

log(A)

6
5
4
3
2
1
0
-25

-20

-15

-10

-5

10

15

20

25

Temperature

Figure 10: Actual log(A) values compared with WLF and Polynomial fit

There are several input files provided, comparing three approaches: (a)
performing curve-fitting directly on temperature-dependent data, (b) using
8

The data was taken from graphs of Reference [3], so there was some approximation
involved.

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a WLF shift function with a master curve, and (c) using a user-defined shift
function with a master curve.
An example of curve-fitting data from multiple temperatures is shown
in fit tdep.inp. When dealing with multiple temperatures, there end up
being many variables for this nonlinear curve-fit. The author prefers to perform the curve-fitting in steps namely, obtain an approximate curve-fit
without the shift function first, then add the shift function afterwards. Both
(a) fixing the reference temperature and (b) selectively using test data also
help to provide some stability to the nonlinear curve-fitting routine. From
this process, using a reference temperature of 22.5 C, the first and second
WLF constants were calculated as 17.73 and 47.89. These provide reasonable values (recall that for Tr equal to the glass transition temperature, the
universal constants are 17.44 and 51.6). The calculated coefficients are
listed in the input file hypalon tdep.inp.
The generation of the Prony pairs for the master curve do not involve
curve-fitting the shift function in ANSYS since the shift function values are
already obtained by the user (see Table 4, second column). The input file
fit master.inp provides the commands necessary to determine the Prony
pairs. When using the WLF shift function, the user can calculate the constants in a straightforward manner in Microsoft Excel or other tools in
this example, the author obtained constants of 14.51 and 37.91 for the reference temperature of 22.5 C, producing the shift values listed in the third
column of Table 4. These deviate more from the universal values noted
earlier, but they are still reasonable in value and are found in the input file
hypalon wlf.inp.
Another case, this time using a third-order polynomial, was implemented
through the UsrShift.F subroutine, which is also provided. In this case, a
fit of the equation log(A) = a1 (T Tr ) + a2 (T Tr )2 + a3 (T Tr )3 produced
coefficients listed in hypalon usrshift.inp, the resulting shift values shown
in the fourth column of Table 4.
A simple uniaxial compression of a single element block was used to
evaluate the performance of the above parameters. The results are shown
in Figure 11. At the reference temperature, all three cases match the test
data well (both situations using a master curve produce the same result
since A(Tr ) = 1). At 15 C, the user-defined case doesnt match quite
as well; this can be explained by the fact that the shift value is a bit off
from the actual value, as listed in Table 4. At 0 C and 25 C, the response
is already in the rubbery region. The cases with the master curve approximate the response reasonably well again, the slight deviation from
the test data is reflected by the fact that the shift functions do not yield
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Sheldons ansys.net Tips

Viscoelasticity

the actual shift values used to generate the master curve. For the case of
temperature-dependent data curve-fit within ANSYS (tdep data), the response prematurely attains the infinite modulus value, which is higher
than that reflected in the test data. This would indicate that the user may
wish to re-fit the data, especially by aiding the curve-fitting routine through
the insertion of expected inifinite modulus at a large time value.
Relaxation at -22.5 deg

Relaxation at -15 deg

550

45

test
wlf
poly
tdep

500

test
wlf
poly
tdep

40

450

35

400
Shear Modulus

Shear Modulus

30
350
300
250

25
20
15

200
10

150

100
50

0
0.1

10
Time

100

1000

10

(a) Results at 22.5 C

100
Time

1000

(b) Results at 15 C

Relaxation at 0 deg

Relaxation at 25 deg

1.4

test
wlf
poly
tdep

2.8

test
wlf
poly
tdep

1.3

2.6
1.2

2.2

Shear Modulus

Shear Modulus

2.4

2
1.8
1.6

1.1

0.9

1.4
0.8
1.2
1

0.7
1

10

100

1000

Time

10

100

1000

Time

(c) Results at 0 C

(d) Results at 25 C

Figure 11: Comparison at different temperatures of experimental data (test) against

curve-fit WLF shift function (tdep), master curve with WLF shift function (wlf),
and master curve with user-defined third-order polynomial shift function (poly)

The user can select one from the above methods to account for temperaturedependency. The user-defined shift function UsrShift.F is helpful for analysts wishing to incorporate their own shift functions. A fourth method of
using temperature-dependent Prony pairs is also possible but not discussed
here.

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Sheldons ansys.net Tips

Viscoelasticity

Conclusion

This memo introduced ANSYS viscoelastic capabilities, namely TB,PRONY

and TB,SHIFT, which are applicable to 18x elements. Some curve-fitting tips
were also covered specifying an adequate number of Prony pairs (start
off with one Prony pair for each order of magntidue variation in time that
is present in the test data), initializing the relaxation time values i (use
evenly-spaced intervals in log(t), and possibly even fix the relaxation times
for several iterations to let ANSYS calculate reasonable starting values of
i ), and verifying that user-supplied instantaneous moduli satisfy the relationship between relaxation data points and Prony pairs. Taking advantage
of the time-temperature superposition by curve-fitting multiple temperature
data simultaneously or by generating a master curve was also covered. The
use of a user-defined shift function UsrShift.F was provided as an example.
Although ANSYS provides powerful, automated tools for viscoelastic
curve-fitting, understanding the curve-fit parameters is important in ensuring that correct material responses will be simulated.

References
[1] ANSYS, Inc. ANSYS 11.0 Structural Analysis Guide, 2007.
[2] Mark Bower and Frederick Gant. Stress Relaxation Functions: Methods of Approximation. Technical report, The University of Alabama in
Huntsville, 1994.
[3] Robert W. Fillers. The Effect of Temperature and Pressure on the Linear
Viscoelastic Response of Elastomers. PhD thesis, California Institute of
Technology, 1975.
[4] Irving Jones and E. Pierre-Louis. A Linear Thermoviscoelastic Material Model for Solid Rocket Motor Structural Analyses. Computers &
Structures, 21:235241, 1985.

Revisions to this Document

STI0807A (June 16, 2008): corrected a few typos, lengthened Conclusion.
STI0807B (December 27, 2008): corrected several typos, added temperature example (Example 3)

18

Sheldons ansys.net Tips

General Information

Sheldons ansys.net Tips and Tricks

Sheldons ansys.net Tips and Tricks are available at the following URL:
http://ansys.net/sheldon tips/
Please remember that, with each release of ANSYS, new features and techniques may be introduced, so please refer to the ANSYS documentation as
well as your local ANSYS support office to verify that these tips are the
most up-to-date method of performing tasks.
Disclaimer: the author has made attempts to ensure that the information contained in this memo is accurate. However, the author assumes no
liability for any use (or misuse) of the information presented in this document or accompanying files. Please refer to ansys.net for the latest version
of this document. Also, this memo and any accompanying input files are
not official ANSYS, Inc. documentation.

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19