A computational framework for rheologically complex thermo-visco-elastic materials

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new finite element framework using fractional calculus to simulate the complex thermo-visco-elastic behavior of polymers, accounting for temperature-dependent properties and phase transitions.

Contribution

It presents a novel numerical model that effectively captures the thermo-rehological complexity of materials with fractional visco-elastic laws, including temperature effects and phase changes.

Findings

Successfully modeled relaxation and creep in EVA polymer

Demonstrated the effectiveness of fractional calculus in complex thermal scenarios

Validated the model with real polymer test cases

Abstract

Fractional calculus has been proved to be very effective in representing the visco-elastic relaxation response of materials with memory such as polymers. Moreover, in modelling the temperature dependency of the material functions in thermo-visco-elasticity, the standard time-temperature superposition principle is known to be ineffective in most of the cases (thermo-rehological complexity). In this work, a novel finite element formulation and numerical implementation is proposed for the simulation of transient thermal analysis in thermo-rehologically complex materials. The parameters of the visco-elastic fractional constitutive law are assumed to be temperature dependent functions and an internal history variable is introduced to track the changes in temperature which are responsible for the phase transition of the material. The numerical approximation of the fractional derivative is employed via the so called Gr\"unwald-Letnikov approximation. The proposed model is used to numerically solve some test cases related to relaxation and creep tests conducted on a real polymer (Etylene Vynil Acetate), which is used as the major encapsulant of solar cells in photovoltaics.