SAMP-1: A Semi-Analytical Model for the Simulation of Polymers

The numerical simulation of structural parts made from plastics is becoming increasingly important nowadays. The fact that almost any structural requirement can be combined in a lightweight, durable and cost effective structure is the driving force behind its widespread application. More and more structural relevant parts are being constructed and manufactured from plastics. This on the other hand drives the demand for reliable and robust methods to design these parts and to predict their structural behaviour. The key ingredients that need to be available are verified, calibrated and validated constitutive models for any family of plastic material. This holds not only true for crashworthiness applications but for any other application field. Under high velocity impact loading, thermoplastic components undergo large plastic deformations and will most likely fail. Consequently, the unloading behaviour is irrelevant and thermoplastics can be modelled with a sufficiently good approximation as pseudo-metallic elastic-plastic bodies. This is, however, not always the case – even in crashworthiness applications. Nowadays important applications in crash simulation that demand a more accurate modelling of thermoplastics are simulation problems in pedestrian protection, e.g. head and leg impact (see [6], [10], [11], [12]) and passenger protection. Although highly sophisticated material laws are available in commercial finite element programs, there are still open questions, especially in the aforementioned field of application.