Elastic properties of cellular polypropylene films: Finite element simulations and their comparison with experiments

TL;DR

This study combines finite element simulations and experimental data to analyze the elastic properties of cellular polypropylene films, revealing how microstructural changes affect their Young's modulus.

Contribution

The paper introduces a power-law model for the effective Young's modulus and compares simulation results with experiments on anisotropic cellular polypropylene films.

Findings

At high solid volume fractions, cells are lateral with a 1-5 ratio.

As volume decreases, cell shape becomes diamond-like with a 1-2 ratio.

Effective Young's modulus increases with decreasing volume fraction.

Abstract

The Young's modulus of a two-dimensional truss-like structure is simulated by using the finite element method. A power-law expression is proposed for the effective Young's modulus of the system. The obtained numerical results are compared with the experimental data of the {\em anisotropic thin cellular polypropylene films}. At high solid volume fractions ($>0.4$), the average shape of the cells are lateral, and their dimensions have around one-to-five ratio. As the samples are inflated further, volume fraction of the solid is decreased, the average shape approach a diamond-like structure with one-to-two ratio. In addition the effective Young's modulus of the system increases. It is concluded that valuable structural information can be obtained by analyzing the experimental data and the numerical simulations, which take into account the material's micro-structural information, simultaneously.