Thermo-Mechanical Behavior of Poly(ether ether ketone): Experiments and Modeling

Observations are reported on poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) in uniaxial tensile tests, relaxation tests and creep tests with various stresses in a wide interval of temperatures ranging from room temperature to 180 °C. Constitutive equations are developed for the thermo–mechanical behavior of PEEK under uniaxial deformation. Adjustable parameters in the governing equations are found by matching the experimental data. Good agreement is demonstrated between the observations and results of numerical simulation. It is shown that the activation energies for the elastoplastic, viscoelastic and viscoelastoplastic responses adopt similar values at temperatures above the glass transition point.