Characteristic Times in Accumulation and Decay
Characteristic Times in Accumulation and Decay
Many traditional models of stress relaxation and creep have been based on a sum of two or three exponential terms, that is, on a discrete spectrum of relaxation or retardation times. It has been demonstrated that in some cases the phenomena may also be described by nonexponential empirical models having fewer parameters. This Demonstration generates data with the conventional exponential models and fits them with a nonexponential empirical model having a single characteristic time constant, . It provides visual comparison of the two models and assists in deciding when the simplified model can be used as a substitute. This also applies to other phenomena such as charge dissipation and accumulation.
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