Professor Susan Mantell

Polymeric components are increasingly used for structural applications. Stress corrosion cracking, which involves a combined effect of stress and chemical corrosion, is a common failure mode in these infrastructures. This group couples chemical reaction analysis with mechanical simulation in the framework of finite element analysis, using Abaqus, to study the lifetime and failure mechanism of polymers during stress corrosion cracking. To validate the model, large datasets are acquired via digital image correlation. Data processing and interpretation utilize supercomputer resources.