Research project: Constitutive modeling of mechanical properties of electrospun polymeric membranes

In recent years, electrospinning has gained popularity as a unique manufacturing technique in different fields due to the promising features for the products. Although multiple attempts have been covered in the literature to investigate the effect of chemical contents and process parameters on the final product, the relation of mechanical response to its microscopic properties of an electrospun product is still scarcely available. This research aims to present a phenomenological model to describe the macroscopic mechanical response of electrospun nanofibrous polymeric membrane. The model is developed based on the consideration of individual fiber response and irreversible inter-fiber interaction as well as deformation induced fiber re-orientation. The framework assumes hyperelastic responses and large strain elasto-plastic to capture the irreversible deformation. The accuracy of the proposed model will be validated with experimental data of PVDF electrospun polymeric membrane.