Investigation of the thermoviscoelastic material behaviour of adhesive bonds close to the glass transition temperature

In the present contribution, a phenomenological material model is presented describing the viscoelastic behaviour of polyurethane bonds under finite deformations. The model includes the temperature dependency of the material behaviour close to the glass transition temperature. Experimentally observed size effects can also be described. It is known from previous investigations that the bonds show an effective behaviour that is influenced by the layer thickness. The physical reason for this behaviour can be found in the formation of boundary layers in the polymer which are located close to the substrate. In these boundary layers, the material behaviour differs from the bulk behaviour. The effective properties of bonds of different thickness are experimentally investigated in isothermal shear tests performed at different temperatures. In order to model the observed effects, a previously developed approach of viscoelasticity is extended including the temperature dependency. Furthermore, a supplementary parameter field is introduced, taking the formation of the boundary layers into account. This field is determined by a partial differential equation in form of a reaction–diffusion equation containing the boundary conditions. The local properties of the polymer are linked to the distribution of this additional field. It is shown that the model parameters can be identified and that the model is able to describe the complex experimentally observed behaviour.