Damage characterization in non-isothermal stretching of acrylics. Part I: Theory

An improved version of dual-mechanism constitutive model was proposed to describe thermo-mechanical response of amorphous polymers below and above glass transition temperature (θg). Material property definitions and plastic flow rules were revisited to provide a smooth and continuous transition in material response around θg. The elastic–viscoplastic constitutive model was developed based on thermodynamics framework and was implemented in a fully coupled thermo-mechanical simulation of non-isothermal testing of PMMA in Part II [Gunel, E. M., Basaran, C., 2010. Damage characterization in non-isothermal stretching of acrylics. Part II: Experimental validation. Mechanics of Materials]. For damage evolution in complex thermo-mechanical problems such as polymer processing operation, irreversible entropy production was considered as the measure of damage.

► Damage evolution and quantification in polymer processing operations. ► Thermodynamically consistent elastic–viscoplastic constitutive model. ► Thermo-mechanical response of amorphous polymer below and above glass transition. ► Damage evolution in terms of entropy based damage mechanics.