Fully coupled heat conduction and deformation analyses of visco-elastic solids

Visco-elastic materials are known for their capability of dissipating energy. This energy is converted into heat and thus changes the temperature of the materials. In addition to the dissipation effect, an external thermal stimulus can also alter the temperature in a visco-elastic body. The rate of stress relaxation (or the rate of creep) and the mechanical and physical properties of visco-elastic materials, such as polymers, vary with temperature. This study aims at understanding the effect of coupling between the thermal and mechanical response that is attributed to the dissipation of energy, heat conduction, and temperature-dependent material parameters on the overall response of visco-elastic solids. The non-linearly visco-elastic constitutive model proposed by Schapery (Further development of a thermodynamic constitutive theory: stress formulation, 1969, Mech. Time-Depend. Mater. 1:209-240, 1997) is used and modified to incorporate temperature- and stress-dependent material properties. This study also formulates a non-linear energy equation along with a dissipation function based on the Gibbs potential of Schapery (Mech. Time-Depend. Mater. 1:209-240, 1997). A numerical algorithm is formulated for analyzing a fully coupled thermo-visco-elastic response and implemented it in a general finite-element (FE) code. The non-linear stress- and temperature-dependent material parameters are found to have significant effects on the coupled thermo-visco-elastic response of polymers considered in this study. In order to obtain a realistic temperature field within the polymer visco-elastic bodies undergoing a non-uniform heat generation, the role of heat conduction cannot be ignored.