Some Aspects of Discrete Relaxation Time Spectra as Obtained from Dynamic Moduli Data

Abstract

The problem of finding a relaxation time spectrum best fitting dynamic moduli data in the least-squares sense is shown to be well-posed and to yield a discrete spectrum, provided the data cannot be fitted exactly, i.e., without any deviation of data and calculated values. Properties of the resulting spectrum are discussed. Examples of discrete spectra obtained from simulated literature data and experimental literature data on polymers are given. The problem of smoothing discrete spectra when continuous ones are expected is discussed. A detailed study of an integral transform inversion under the non-negativity constraint is given in Appendix.