ABSTRACT
Another approach has been published by Lion & Höfer (2) who proposed a phenomenological thermo-viscoelastic curing model for finite strain deformations. It accounts for thermally and chemically induced volume changes via a ternary multiplicative split of the deformation gradient into mechanical, thermal and chemical parts. Similar to Adolf’s ansatz, a coordinate of reaction is introduced that corresponds to the degree of cure. The model is mainly based on the assumption of process dependent viscosities as in the previous works of Haupt & Lion (10; 11; 12). The resulting constitutive relation is derived in a thermodynamically consistent manner, i.e. it fulfills the second law of thermodynamics, which is an important issue that many of the earlier curing models did not touch. Detailed algorithmic formulations for the finite element implementation of this model are elaborated in Retka & Höfer (13). The energy density used for the mechanical part of this model is of a phenomenological type.
