Thermo-chemo-electro-mechanical modeling of polyelectrolyte gels

Polyelectrolyte gels show adaptive viscoelastic characteristics. In water-based solutions they have enormous swelling capabilities under the influence of various possible stimulation types, such as chemical, electrical or thermal. In the present work a fully coupled 3-field formulation for polyelectrolyte gels using the Finite Element Method (FEM) is applied. This formulation consists of a chemical, electrical, and mechanical field equation. The mechanical field is coupled to the chemo-electrical field by a prescribed strain stemming from an osmotic pressure term. In experiments it has been proven that there is a large dependency between the applied temperature and the actual swelling degree of the gel. In the present research, the thermal stimulation is investigated. First, only the actual temperature is considered in the osmotic pressure term. Then, additionally, temperature-dependent material parameters obtained from experimental measurements are applied. The calibration of the numerical simulation is performed with experimental results available in literature.

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