Development of viscoplastic strains during creep in continuous fibre GMT composites

This work is part of a larger study aimed at characterizing the viscoelastic–viscoplastic behavior of a continuous fiber glass mat thermoplastic composite. The purpose of this paper is to experimentally and numerically decouple the viscoplastic strains from total creep response. This enabled the characterization of the evolution of viscoplastic strains as a function of time, stress and loading cycles. The separation also allowed viscoplastic strain development to be corresponded with the progression of failure mechanisms such as interfacial debonding and matrix cracking which were captured in situ. This was achieved by performing creep tests at seven stress levels between 20 and 80 MPa. For each stress level, a series of creep-recovery tests were performed on single specimen for increasingly longer durations from 1 to 24 h. Stress and time dependence of viscoplastic strains were determined experimentally. Using part of the data generated, a viscoplastic model was developed following a method proposed by Nordin. The model had excellent agreement with experimental results for all stresses and times considered. In multiple loading cycles, the viscoplastic strain development is accelerated with increasing number of cycles at higher stress levels. The results further verify the technique for numerical separation of viscoplastic strains proposed in an earlier work. Finally, it was found that the development viscoelastic strains during creep are affected by the previous viscoplastic strain history.