Universal aspects of composite viscoelastic behavior

Abstract The viscoelastic behavior of a series of vinyl ester resins and E‐glass fiber‐reinforced composites is discussed. It is shown that the temperature shift factors for these systems, and others, suggests a universal behavior. A similar observation is made for the aging shift rate. On the other hand, the temperature dependence of compliance components per se appear to differ from system to system. Finally, it is shown that the retardation spectra for the vinyl ester resin and composites systems are the same to within a multiplicative constant in the glassy and in the short time transition regions. This shows that the presence of fibers has no influence on the distribution of retardation times in those regions.