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Predicting the creep compliance of short fiber reinforced polymer composites from the matrix creep using an elementary approach
Last modified: 16. 05. 2025
Abstract
In light weight design short fiber reinforced polymer composites (SFRC) are used because of their excellent performance. However, for dimensioning purposes it is crucial to know their mechanical long-term behavior that is usually determined by measuring the creep compliances under given stresses and temperatures. This is very time consuming behavior as effects of fiber orientation have to be taken into account what requires measuring the creep in several directions. It is obvious that the creep of SFRC is mainly determined by the matrix creep because of the high stiffness of the fibers. Currently, first dimensioning is usually performed by finite element analysis (FEA) what requires basic materials data. These are often not available for the chosen SFRC. During the last 5 decades, a lot of creep experiments were performed for the corresponding matrix materials. Therefore, it would be helpful to have a model that allows for predicting the creep of SFRC basing only on the matrix creep. Such a model is presented and it requires data of the stress and temperature dependent matrix creep, the fiber orientation distribution and the fiber length distribution. The potential of the model is demonstrated by comparing predicted and measured creep compliances parallel and perpendicular to the flow direction.