Development of an internal state variable model to describe the mechanical behavior of amorphous polymer and its application to impact testing

Abstract

The use of lighter and impact resistant materials, such as polymers, in vehicular systems is an important motivation for the automotive industry as these materials would make vehicles more fuel-efficient without compromising safety standards. In general, polymers exhibit a rich variety of material behavior originating from their particular microstructural (long molecular chains) behavior that is strongly temperature, pressure, and time dependent. To capture such intricate behavior, a number of polymer constitutive models have been proposed and implemented into finite element codes in an effort to solve complex engineering problems (see [1] for a review of these models). However, developing improved constitutive models for polymers that are physically-based is always a challenging area that has important implications for the design of polymeric structural components. © 2010 Society for Experimental Mechanics Inc.