THERMOMECHANICAL COUPLING APPLIED TO PLASTICS

The paper presents an application of thermo-mechanical coupling to the rmo-plastics. Specifically, the interaction of mechanical and thermal effects in a polypropylene plastic is studied using numerical simulati on. The material properties are such as to make such coupling signific ant in some industrial applications. Restricting the study to infinite simal deformations, the balance laws and axioms of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics are used to determine the response of polypropylen e homopolymers to stress, strain and temperature cycling, with the spe cimen assumed to be in a uniform state of stress/strain/temperature at any instant of time. The numerical experiments are carried out assumi ng the specimen to be ideally thermally insulated. Predictions from th e model are in agreement with preliminary industrial test results. Cop yright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.