Predicting Shear Adhesion of Water-Based Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives via Transient Rheological Measurements

The relation between shear holding power and pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) rheological properties is investigated. Two constitutive models of PSA rheology, i.e., Newtonian and Power Law, are considered and experimentally tested for their ability to predict shear holding power. A Power Law model is found to be suitable for this purpose and is used to predict shear holding power with dynamic viscosity and steady shear viscosity measured by means of a transient creep experiment. Dynamic viscosity is shown to fail in predicting shear adhesion of high-viscosity PSA, whereas steady shear produces good agreement. It is demonstrated that the Cox-Merz rule does not hold for high-viscosity PSAs, explaining the need for steady shear viscosity data in modeling shear holding power.