Modeling material behavior of polymers

Abstract

Polymers are widely used in the automotive, aerospace and computer industries, building trades and many other applications. Many researchers have worked on the investigation and analysis of polymers’ properties and behavior. The present chapter is devoted to polymer material research including testing and modeling. First, an introductory discussion on types of polymers and their tensile and compressive behavior and mechanical properties is provided. Experimental results show a high degree of nonlinearity in polyethylene behavior, which requires modeling based on coupled non-separable formulation. Representations of viscoelastic and viscoplastic models for linear and nonlinear behaviors are presented based on differential formulation. Finally, comparisons are made between the test data and the presented theory for the loading cases of short term, long term and step loadings.