Self-consistent Fourier–Tschebyshev representations of the first normal stress difference in large amplitude oscillatory shear

Large amplitude oscillatory shear (LAOS) is a key technique for characterizing nonlinear viscoelasticity in a wide range of materials. Most research to date has focused on the shear stress response to an oscillatory strain input. However, for highly elastic materials such as polymer melts, the time-varying first normal stress difference N1(t;ω,γ0) can become much larger than the shear stress at sufficiently large strains, serving as a sensitive probe of the material’s nonlinear characteristics. We present a Fourier–Tschebyshev framework for decomposing the higher-order spectral content of the N1 material functions generated in LAOS. This new decomposition is first illustrated through analysis of the second-order and fourth-order responses of the quasilinear upper convected Maxwell model and the fully nonlinear Giesekus model. We then use this new framework to analyze experimental data on a viscoelastic silicone polymer and a thermoplastic polyurethane melt. Furthermore, we couple this decomposition with the recently developed Gaborheometry strain sweep technique to enable rapid and quantitative determination of the N1 material function from experimental normal force data obtained in a single sweep from small to large strain amplitudes. We verify that asymptotic connections between the oscillatory shear stress and N1 in the quasilinear limit are satisfied for the experimental data, ensuring self-consistency. This framework for analyzing the first normal stress difference is complementary to the established framework for analyzing the shear stresses in LAOS and augments the content of material-specific data sets, hence more fully quantifying the important nonlinear viscoelastic properties of a wide range of soft materials.