Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems

Spotlight on Research - Polymeric Material Characterization and Modeling for the Automotive Industry

A wide range of plastics, rubbers, polymeric foams and fabric compounds are available for use in the automotive industry. They have been developed to withstand extreme operating environments (temperature and vibration) and to provide improved levels of resistance to oils, surface abrasion wear, and sunlight. Some automotive applications may also benefit from the high levels of traction / friction between loaded surfaces that rubber can provide (e.g. tracked vehicles). However, all of these applications require scientists and engineers to conduct robust design simulations using material databases and models that perform under a variety of loading environments - high-rate to low-rate conditions.

This research is developing a material database for polymers that can be used in typical automotive applications from tests conducted under complex loading conditions that lead to constitutive models based on the use of Internal State Variables to simulate numerically the complex chemical phenomena exhibited in the specific mechanical behavior of polymers. The goal of this research into the use of lighter and impact resistant materials is to make vehicles more fuel efficient and maintaining safety.