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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1854-9523
AccessType
Open Access Dissertation
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Polymer Science and Engineering
Year Degree Awarded
2020
Month Degree Awarded
September
First Advisor
Alfred J. Crosby
Subject Categories
Physical Chemistry | Polymer and Organic Materials | Polymer Chemistry | Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
Abstract
A material is considered soft when its bulk modulus is significantly greater than its shear modulus. Rubbery polymers are a class of soft materials where resistance to extension is mainly entropic in nature. Polymeric soft solids differ from liquids due to the presence of a percolated network of strong bonds that resist deformation and flow on a given time scale. The incompressible nature, entropically driven elasticity, and molecular scale network structure of soft polymeric solids combine to impart unique mechanical behavior that often results in complex material responses to simple loading situations. An important example of this is cavitation in soft solids. Cavitation is the sudden, unstable expansion of a void within a liquid or solid due to the application of a negative hydrostatic stress. In soft solids, quantifying the damage imparted during cavitation is complicated by a balance between a large strain elastic expansion process and a complex fracture process. Understanding this damage is crucial to applications in materials characterization, the design of pressure sensitive adhesives, and damage of biological tissues. Previous work modeling the transition between these expansion processes has been limited to the continuum level where it is difficult to draw connections to damage on the molecular scale. The overarching goal of this thesis is to probe the cavitation to fracture transition and connect it to molecular scale network structure. In order to accomplish this goal, improvements to the experimental methods, materials structure, and molecular theory are developed in the first three chapters of this dissertation and are exploited in the fourth chapter to link cavitation and fracture to molecular scale structural damage.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/18154481
Recommended Citation
Barney, Christopher, "Theory And Improved Methods For Probing The Cavitation To Fracture Transition" (2020). Doctoral Dissertations. 1993.
https://doi.org/10.7275/18154481
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1993
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
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Included in
Physical Chemistry Commons, Polymer and Organic Materials Commons, Polymer Chemistry Commons, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics Commons