Creep modeling for injection-molded long-fiber thermoplastics

This paper proposes a model to predict the creep response of injection-molded long-fiber thermoplastics (LFTs). The model accounts for elastic fibers embedded in a thermoplastic resin that exhibits the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior described by the Schapery's model. It also accounts for fiber length and orientation distributions in the composite formed by the injection-molding process. Fiber length and orientation distributions were measured and used in the analysis that applies the Eshelby's equivalent inclusion method, the Mori-Tanaka assumption (termed the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka approach) and the fiber orientation averaging technique to compute the overall strain increment resulting from an overall constant applied stress during a given time increment. The creep model for LFTs has been implemented in the ABAQUS finite element code via user-subroutines and has been validated against the experimental creep data obtained for long-glass-fiber/polypropylene specimens. The effects of fiber orientation and length distributions on the composite creep response are determined and discussed.