Related papers: A framework for analyzing hyper-viscoelastic polym…
Brittle-ductile transition (BDT) is an important characteristic of amorphous (and semicrystalline) polymers. For a given strain rate, at temperatures above BDT, the polymers exhibit strain softening followed by yield and strain hardening,…
Fracture of materials with rate-dependent mechanical behaviour, e.g. polymers, is a highly complex process. For an adequate modelling, the coupling between rate-dependent stiffness, dissipative mechanisms present in the bulk material and…
Vitrimers are polymer networks that, thanks to covalent bond exchange, combine desirable properties of thermoplastic and thermosets, such as flowability and insolubility. For this reason, vitrimers are considered to be good candidates for a…
Temperature-sensitive hydrogels based on polymers such as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) undergo a volume phase transition in response to changes in temperature. During this transition, distinct changes in both thermal and mechanical…
Understanding fluctuation-induced breakages in polymers has important implications for basic and applied sciences. Here I present for the first time an analytical treatment of the thermal breakage problem of a semi-flexible polymer model…
Viscoelasticity plays a key role in many practical applications and in different reasearch fields, such as in seals, sliding-rolling contacts and crack propagation. In all these contexts, a proper knowledge of the viscoelastic modulus is…
Viscoelastic rate-type fluid models are essential for describing the behavior of a wide range of complex materials, with applications in fields such as engineering, biomaterials, and medicine. These models are particularly useful for…
Fractional calculus has been proved to be very effective in representing the visco-elastic relaxation response of materials with memory such as polymers. Moreover, in modelling the temperature dependency of the material functions in…
The viscoelastic properties of thin polymeric films represent a central issue, especially for nanotechnological applications. In particular, it is highly relevant the dependence of viscoelasticity on the temperature. For polystyrene it is…
Soft polymers are ubiquitous materials in nature and as engineering materials with properties varying from rate-independent to rate-dependent. Current fracture toughness measures are non-unique for rate-dependent soft materials for varying…
To study the cooling behavior and the glass transition of polymer melts in bulk and with free surfaces a coarse-grained weakly semi-flexible polymer model is developed. Based on a standard bead spring model with purely repulsive…
The increased adoption of reinforced polymer (RP) composite materials, driven by eco-design standards, calls for a fine balance between lightness, stiffness, and effective vibration control. These materials are integral to enhancing…
Understanding the nature of glass transition, as well as precise estimation of the glass transition temperature for polymeric materials, remain open questions in both experimental and theoretical polymer sciences. We propose a data-driven…
The present article is concerned with modelling the viscoelastic behavior of Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in large-strain regime. Starting from the basic principles of thermodynamics, an incremental variational formulation is derived. Within…
We study the dynamics of small perturbations to the rest state of a viscoelastic rate type fluid with temperature dependent material parameters. We show that if the material parameters are chosen appropriately, then the quiescent state of…
We study two closely related, nonlinear models of a viscoplastic solid. These models capture essential features of plasticity over a wide range of strain rates and applied stresses. They exhibit inelastic strain relaxation and steady flow…
The mechanical response, serviceability, and load bearing capacity of materials and structural components can be adversely affected due to external stimuli, which include exposure to a corrosive chemical species, high temperatures,…
We study the dynamics of a polymer that is pulled by a constant force through a viscoelastic medium. This is a model for a polymer being pulled through a cell by an external force, or for an active biopolymer moving due to a self generated…
Two series of uniaxial tensile tests are performed on isotactic polypropylene with the strain rates ranging from 5 to 200 mm/min. In the first series, injection-molded specimens are used without thermal pre-treatment, whereas in the other…
In the automotive industry, thermoplastic polymers are used for a significant number of interior and exterior parts. These components have to pass all underlying crash and safety relevant tests, where a proper performance is desired in the…