NON-LINEAR FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF A POLYMER-MADE MACHINE PART

Abstract

Polymers are more and more popular as structural materials nowadays. However, their material behaviour is much more complicated than that of metals. In the present paper, a polypropylene-made automobile part is studied. The point of interest is its response to periodic excitations. Both geometric and material nonlinearities are present in the problem. To solve it, a finite element model, composed of thick shell elements is prepared and presented. It uses a three-parameter Maxwell material model that is built by the authors based on measurement data from the literature. To verify the finite element results, measurements are also done and evaluated. Eigenfrequencies (of the nonlinear system) are quite well approximated. However, as shown, other effects such as modal dissipation depending on frequency can not be modeled with this material law.