Microstructural driven computational modeling of polymers

The key focus of this work is the polymer microstructure which is the origin of the overall material response. In elastomers random three-dimensional networks are formed by long macromolecules connected at the cross-links by vulcanization or permanent entanglements. The mechanical response of these materials is mainly entropic and is related to the number of conformations that flexible polymer chains can attain. The available kinetic theories link the entropy of a single chain to such microscopic quantities as the end-to-end distance between the cross-links or the constraining tube diameter among others. The central issue of micromechanically-based material modeling is the relation between these quantities and the macroscopic deformation. In this work this connection is established by a network homogenization approach. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)