Isothermal recovery response and constitutive model of thermoset shape memory polymers

Deformation recovery capability is one of the important indexes to examination shape memory effect of the shape memory polymers (SMPs). And the shape memory characteristic of SMPs is closely related to different phase states and mechanical properties above and below the glass transition temperature (T_g). In this paper, we investigated the strain recovery response of a thermoset shape memory epoxy resin modified by polyurethane (PU) through uniaxial compression experiments under various isothermal conditions and strain rates and developed a three-phase constitutive model based on phase transition concept, which including stationary phase, active phase and frozen phase. This model established the mutual transformation relationships between frozen phase and active phase of SMPs by introducing temperature switch function, which presents the stain storage and release process of SMPs under loading and changing temperature environment. Besides, the proposed model represents the SMPs deformation process of viscous hysteresis response by employing the rheological elements description of the three phases. The numerical results agree very well with experiment results of stress-strain response curve of isothermal compression/unloading test, which validated this model can predict the finite deformation behavior of SMPs.