Abstract
Traditionally, Burgers model in the theory of viscoelasticity is regarded as a viscoelastic liquid model for analyzing the viscoelastic behaviors of viscoelastic liquids. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate that Burgers model is not just a viscoelastic liquid model but is actually a general viscoelastic model capable of analyzing the viscoelastic behaviors of both viscoelastic liquids and solids. Specifically speaking, Burgers model can convert between a viscoelastic liquid model and a viscoelastic solid model, depending on the value of one of its viscosity parameters \({{\eta }_{1}}\) . If \({{\eta }_{1}}\) is a finite value, Burgers model is a viscoelastic liquid model, and the viscoelastic behaviors described by Burgers model reflect those of viscoelastic liquids. On the other hand, if \({{\eta }_{1}}\) approaches \(\infty \) (that is, an extremely large value in practice), Burgers model converts to the Kelvin form of standard linear solid model and therefore becomes a viscoelastic solid model, and the viscoelastic behaviors described by Burgers model reflect those of viscoelastic solids. In the present paper, both simulation and experimental data were successfully used to validate the proposed theory. The importance of knowing this fact for practical applications is that, one doesn’t need to bother choosing a right model (a viscoelastic liquid model or a viscoelastic solid model) to curve-fit the data, since Burgers model (or its generalized form) can be applied for analyzing the experimental data of both viscoelastic liquids and solids regardless of the characteristics of the data.
