Large-strain poroelastic plate theory for polymer gels with applications to swelling-induced morphing of composite plates

TL;DR

This paper develops a large-strain plate theory for polymer gels that captures swelling and elastic deformation, enabling efficient simulation of morphing behaviors in composite gel plates.

Contribution

A novel large-strain poroelastic plate model derived from 3D theory, specifically tailored for polymer gels with validation against 3D benchmarks.

Findings

The plate model accurately predicts swelling-induced morphing.

Finite element simulations confirm the model's efficiency and accuracy.

The approach simplifies complex 3D problems into computationally manageable 2D analyses.

Abstract

We derive a large-strain plate model that allows to describe transient, coupled processes involving elasticity and solvent migration, by performing a dimensional reduction of a three-dimensional poroelastic theory. We apply the model to polymer gel plates, for which a specific kinematic constraint and constitutive relations hold. Finally, we assess the accuracy of the plate model with respect to the parent three-dimensional model through two numerical benchmarks, solved by means of the finite element method. Our results show that the theory offers an efficient computational framework for the study of swelling-induced morphing of composite gel plates.