ABSTRACT

In this research project, flexural creep and tensile creep

estimations were carried out at constant room temperature and at a time
range between (1-109) seconds to measure the viscoelastic creep
properties of polymer and polymeric material reinforced with short
fibers.
The present work is a theoretical macromechanics study, which
concentrates on linear viscoelastic creep behavior of polypropylene and
short E-glass fiber reinforced polypropylene. The loading cases are
externally applied concentrated loads and the deformations have been
limited with small strains.
In this investigation, a three-parameter model is used as a
mathematical viscoelastic model to represent the linear viscoelastic
behavior of polypropylene and will not yet reach to permanent
deformation.
Through this analysis, the finite element method as a numerical
method is applied to obtain the mechanical properties. Galerkin finite
element method has been adopted for the derivation of governing
equation. Two finite element computer programs in Quick Basic
language have been designed to obtain the mechanical properties that
represented by strain, modulus, and compliance from flexural creep and
tensile creep estimations.
The material systems that have been chosen for this study are:
-Isotropic unreinforced polypropylene.
-Polypropylene reinforced with aligned short E-glass fibers.
-Polypropylene reinforced with random short E-glass fibers.
The principle of time-temperature equivalence has been applied
and observed from the mechanical properties of polymer and PMC.
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Halpin-Tsai equation has been shown an improvement the

modulus and decrease in the strain and compliance values for PMC
reinforced with short fibers in both aligned and random reinforcement
through flexural creep and tensile creep estimations.
On the other hand, the modified rule of mixtures has been shown
increasing in strain and compliance values and constancy in modulus
according to tensile creep estimation while the same method has been
proved the slight effect of reinforcement on PMC properties due to
flexural creep estimation.

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