Modelling Mullins effect induced by chain delamination and reattachment

Abstract

We propose a continuum theory to model the Mullins effect, which is ubiquitously observed in polymer composites. In the theory, the softening of the materials during the stretching process is accounted for by considering the delamination of polymer chains from nano-/micro-sized fillers, and the recovery effect during the de-stretching process is due to the reattachment of the polymer chains to nano-/micro-sized fillers. By incorporating the chain entanglements, Log-Normal distribution of the mesh size in the network, etc., we can obtain a good agreement between our numerical calculation results and existing experiments. This theory can be easily adapted to meet more practical demands and utilised in analysing mechanic properties of polymer composites.