A finite element method for light activated shape‐memory polymers |
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| Authors: | Craig M. Hamel Fangda Cui Shawn A. Chester |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Mechanical Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA |
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| Abstract: | Shape‐memory polymers (SMPs) belong to a class of smart materials that have shown promise for a wide range of applications. They are characterized by their ability to maintain a temporary deformed shape and return to an original parent permanent shape. In this paper, we consider the coupled photomechanical behavior of light activated shape‐memory polymers (LASMPs), focusing on the numerical aspects for finite element simulations at the engineering scale. The photomechanical continuum framework is summarized, and some specific constitutive equations for LASMPs are described. Numerical implementation of the multiphysics governing partial differential equations takes the form of a user defined element subroutine within the commercial software package ABAQUS . We verify our two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional finite element procedure for multiple analytically tractable cases. To show the robustness of the numerical implementation, simulations are performed under various geometries and complex photomechanical loading. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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| Keywords: | finite element methods shape‐memory polymer radiative transfer multifield systems Petrov– Galerkin solids |
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