The relaxation of polymers around and below their glass transition temperature is governed by a range of correlated unit processes with a wide range of timescales. The fast deformation rates of shock loading can negate a significant fraction of these processes resulting in the dynamical glass transition in rubbers. In this letter we report the inverse, a transient melting of glassy polymer under shock loading. The large deviatoric stresses near the shock front induce fast transitions in backbone dihedral angles and a stress relaxation characteristic of polymer melts. This is followed by the slower relaxation expected for glasses.
@article{arxiv.2204.02459,
title = {Deviatoric Stress Driven Transient Melting Below the Glass Transition Temperature in Shocked Polymers},
author = {Jalen Macatangay and Brenden W. Hamilton and Alejandro Strachan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.02459},
year = {2022}
}