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Applied Mechanics of Polymers
Applied Mechanics
of Polymers
Properties, Processing, and Behavior
George Youssef
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA
Elsevier
Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can
be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the
Publisher (other than as may be noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience
broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical
treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating
and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such
information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others,
including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors,
assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products
liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products,
instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
v
vi Contents
9. Hydrogels 221
9.1 Introduction 221
9.2 Mechanics of hydrogels 228
9.2.1 Hydrogel deformation theory 228
9.2.2 Poroelasticity 232
9.3 Applications of hydrogels 236
9.4 Applied FEA simulation example 237
Practice problems 239
References 240
viii Contents
Index 301
Chapter 1
1.1 Introduction
Polymers are one of the primary classes of materials rivaling metals and
ceramics while being an integral part of the remarkable and transformative
hybrid materials of polymer matrix composites. Polymers are commonly
referred to as plastics, but we ought to formalize this nomenclature since the
classification of polymers is important for the fundamental understanding of
their physical properties and mechanical behaviors, as will be discussed later.
Polymers are ubiquitous in many applications ranging from aerospace to auto-
motive, from consumer goods to household goods, and from sports gear to bio-
medical devices. In fact, we daily encounter polymers, intentionally or
unintentionally, in even some of the most mundane activities. For example,
an observant eye would notice polymers everywhere in the interior of an aircraft
as soon as you step inside the fuselage cabin, where the structural cabin window
system and the accompanying dust cover that we often are asked to lower down
during takeoff and landing, are made of different polymers. Another common
transportation vehicle that encompasses a large percentage of polymers is the
passenger automobile, which has nearly 30% of all its parts made of different
types of polymers depending on the design requirements. The dashboard, instru-
ment panel, interior trim, seating, interlayer in the front and rear windshields,
and carpet fibers are just a few examples of interior parts in the car that are made
of polymers. Many automotive exterior parts are also made of polymers where
they are subjected to aggressive loading and environmental conditions such as
the tires (being the most obvious), the bumpers, the undercarriage, the wheel
housing, the radiator support, and the many parts in the fuel system, again just
to list a few examples.
Evident from the diversity of the applications mentioned above is the broad
range of operating and environmental conditions. Polymers that are used under
the hood of a car are required to endure combined thermal and mechanical load-
ing for a long duration, while those that are used in the fuel system are required
to resist aggressive chemicals, e.g., the fuel, while supporting a working pres-
sure of 345 kPa (mechanical loads). Moreover, some polymers have to bear
substantial mechanical loads while being abrasive resistant, e.g., tires help
support a sizable portion of the car weight (25%) while enduring abrasion dur-
ing contact with the road. In all, the class of polymeric materials itself is as
diverse as the applications they are integrated into. Therefore, the goal of this
textbook is to provide the fundamental background to assist engineers in per-
forming meaningful stress analyses based on material constitutive models
derived from the theory of continuum mechanics. These material models rep-
resent and describe the mechanical behavior of the polymer used in the design.
With this background in mind, it is now fitting to briefly define polymers
noting that the term polymer is commonly used interchangeably with the word
macromolecule, within the polymer science community. The basic definition of
polymers comes from the Greek roots of the word, where the origin of ‘poly’ in
Greek is either “polus’ meaning “much’ or ‘polloi” meaning “many.” Polymers
are then materials of many repeating parts, units, or “mers” (from the Greek
word “meros”). Polymers are compounds consisting of repeating long-chain
units that are connected, where each single chain may have thousands or even
millions of the repeating mers. Moreover, polymers are materials with interdig-
itated molecules with different length scales. Generally, polymers are either
hydrocarbons (covalently-bonded carbon-hydrogen backbone) or silicones
(silicon-oxygen backbone). This molecular structure is responsible for the over-
all properties of polymers. Polymers can either be natural (e.g., human DNA
and hair) or engineered (such as nylon and polyvinyl chloride). Some of the
overarching advantages and limitations of polymers are succinctly summarized
in Table 1.1, which is not intended to be comprehensive or applicably inclusive
to all types of polymers. While time-dependent properties are included in the
table as an example of general disadvantage, this might be a desirable attributes
for polymers used in dynamic or impact situations.
Before delving into more details, there are three questions that we need to
ask and answer to not only motivate the whole field of study of polymer
mechanics but also to gain an insightful perspective about this interesting class
FIG. 1.1 Ashby’s material selection chart of Young’s modulus as a function of density for the
major classes of materials including polymers and elastomers [1].
4 Applied mechanics of polymers
FIG. 1.2 Specific strength Ashby’s selection chart showing relative properties of polymers with
respect to other classes of materials [1].
FIG. 1.3 Brief timeline including the major milestones in the development of polymers.
Introduction and background Chapter 1 7
billiard balls, automotive parts, electric insulators, and even household goods
(e.g., pot handles). The uses of Bakelite were infiltrating every aspect of daily
life to the point it prompted Time magazine in 1924 to label it a “material with a
thousand uses,” and that was not an exaggerated supposition. While it may have
been overshadowed by the fame of Bakelite, Cellophane was created in 1912
and quickly soared in the food packaging industry especially in 1927 when
DuPont was able to make it a moisture-resistant material. Around the same time,
in 1926, a formal process was invented to plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC,
initially synthesized in 1872 but was unusable due to processing issues), leading
to its commercial dominance in many applications including the construction
industry in plumbing components such as pipes and tubes.
In the 1930s, three synthetic polymers were produced and are still in produc-
tion today with significant annual tonnage. These polymers are polyethylene,
used in the production of liquid containers, polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC,
Saran wrap), and Nylon (first introduced in the fashion industry as stockings).
While the usefulness of Nylon was quickly recognized by the United States mil-
itary for parachutes and robes, polyethylene rose to fame when it was utilized to
develop Tupperware in 1946. Of course, one should not ignore the fact that the
world was raging in a war between 1939 and 1945, hence the slight gap in poly-
mer discoveries. In the mid-twentieth century (the 1950s), three additional com-
mercially valuable polymers were introduced, which are polyester (first
synthesized in 1939), polypropylene (PP), and high-density polyethylene
(HDPE). These polymers remain as important today as they were in the
1950s. It is also important to note the industrial prevalence of polypropylene
as it became the new Bakelite of the latter end of the twentieth century and
the beginning of the 21st century. This era of great discoveries in synthetic poly-
mers was not over yet; in 1965, polysulfone and Kevlar were introduced. The
second half of the last century was the pioneering era for a plethora of other
synthetic polymers that were based on petroleum oil. Petroleum-based poly-
mers are a versatile group of materials that are found in numerous applications.
This hasty and brief historical background would not be complete without
embarking on the history of four vital subclasses of polymers: (1) biopolymers,
(2) hydrogels, (3) conductive polymers, and (4) polymeric foams. We will dis-
cuss, at length, the mechanical behavior of some of these subclasses in later
chapters, but here their emergence into the technical stage is briefly introduced.
Biopolymers are a vital subclass of polymers for the entire plastic industry and
their roots are traced back to the inception of the first human-made, synthetic
polymers in the late 1800s since most of these polymers were derived from nat-
ural and renewable sources. They also include those produced by living organ-
isms, including polyesters, polynucleotides, proteins (e.g., collagen was
discovered in 1938), polysaccharides (from bacteria, fungi, plants/algal, or ani-
mals), lipids/surfactants, and polyphenols. On the other hand, hydrogels were
introduced in 1960 as a hydrophilic synthetic polymer that undergoes a signif-
icant volume phase transition when stimulated physically (e.g., temperature) or
8 Applied mechanics of polymers
FIG. 1.4 Schematic representation of basic polymer structure (solid lines represent primary cova-
lent bonds while shaded areas indicate secondary bonding).
10 Applied mechanics of polymers
FIG. 1.5 Schematics of polymer crystallization showing random amorphous and ordered semi-
crystalline structures (perturbations in the lamellae and spherulite emphasize the barrier to complete
crystallization).
arrangement of the strands, you will notice the lack of any spatial order. Exam-
ples of amorphous polymers are polystyrene, polymethyl methacrylate
(PMMA), polycarbonate, polyvinyl chloride, and natural rubber.
On the other hand, when the chains manage to overcome the energy cost to
form positional order (crystalline regions), the polymer is then said to be
semicrystalline. A semicrystalline polymer contains adjacent crystalline and
amorphous regions within the same sample. Since polymers cannot achieve
complete crystallinity at the macroscale, i.e., the degree of crystallinity is less
than 100%, the prefix ‘semi’ is usually used to describe the crystallinity of poly-
mers. The degree of crystallinity (DoC) is then defined as the proportion of the
crystallized phase in the mass. These crystalline phases are formed by the chains
folding together, creating ordered lamellae regions (Fig. 1.5B), which can self-
arrange into spherulites (radially spreading tentacles made of lamellae and sep-
arated by amorphous regions) as shown in Fig. 1.5C. The DoC is affected by the
spatial arrangement of atoms and group of atoms in the monomer (stereoregu-
larity), chain branching, and whether the hydrocarbon backbone is aliphatic
(linear) or aromatic (ring) structure. It is also influenced by the conditions sur-
rounding the polymerization process, e.g., the evaporation rate of solvent and
the cooling rate. Examples of semicrystalline polymers include polyethylene,
polypropylene, polyamide (Nylon), and polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon). In
general, the degree of crystallization affects the physical properties of the mate-
rial such that a greater proportion of crystallized regions is associated with an
overall higher elastic modulus and higher melting temperature. For example,
low-density polyethylene with 55% DoC has a density of 920 kg/m3, an elastic
modulus of 140 MPa, and a melting temperature of 115°C, whereas the same
properties of high-density polyethylene with 92% DoC are found to be
960 kg/m3, 700 MPa, and 135°C, respectively. Additionally, some polymers
are only transparent in the amorphous phase within the visible range of the elec-
tromagnetic spectrum, and they become opaque when partially crystallized. The
optical properties of polymers at other wavelengths are also associated with
changes in the degree of crystallinity. Generally, the corresponding increase
Introduction and background Chapter 1 11
substance produced by various plants that grow in tropical climates). The devel-
opment of synthetic rubbers was primarily motivated by the world wars when
the trade of natural rubbers was interrupted. The tonnage of synthetic rubbers is
currently a few times more than their natural counterparts. Commercially sig-
nificant synthetic rubbers include ethylene-propylene-diene (EPDM), nitrile,
synthetic isoprene, and chloroprene. The basic properties of some of the essen-
tial polymers in each class are listed in Table 1.2.
TABLE 1.2 Shortlist of the density, elastic modulus (E), and ultimate tensile
strength (UTS) of common thermoplastic (TP), thermosets (TS), and
synthetic rubbers (SR).
Density E UTS
3
Polymer Symbol Class (kg/m ) (MPa) (MPa)
Acrylonitrile butadiene ABS TP 1060 2100 50
styrene
Poly(methyl methacrylate) PMMA TP 1200 2800 55
Polycarbonate PC TP 1200 2500 65