Original paper(Vol.50 No.6 pp.578)

Estimation of Deformation Behavior of Rubber-Blended Glassy Polymers

Wei LU and Yoshihiro TOMITA

Abstract:To estimate the deformation behavior of rubber-blended glassy polymers, a computational method has been established with newly developed constitutive equation for glassy polymer and homogenization method. The parametric study has been performed through series of simulation of deformation behavior for the plane strain glassy polymer unit cell containing inclusion with different volume fraction, size, and different distribution pattern subjected to different directional loading. The effect of these parameters on the characteristic feature of the deformation resistance, the onset and propagation of shearband, the normal stress distribution on the interface of matrix and inclusion and the maximum mean stress inside the inclusions have been clarified. The results indicate that depending on these parameter, quite different types of shear bands appear and propogate. The decrease of the macroscopic yield stress is attributalbe to the onset of the shearband which connects the most neighboring particles. The macroscopic deformation behavior exhibits nearly isotropic for the case with different sized inclusions. The maximum normal stress appears at the position where the shear band arrived and it moves with the propagation of shear band. The maximum mean stress increases as the shearband is sharpened.

Key Words:Rubber-blended polymer, Glassy polymer, Non-affine molecular chain network model, Homogenization method, Shear band propagation.