| This PhD was organized as collaboration between Lehigh University and the Ecole des Mines d'Albi on the subject: "Numerical simulation of thick sheet thermoforming". The research applications cover a wide range of products from thermoforming, e.g., packaging, automobile parts, appliance parts, large-scale panels and covers. Due to the special nature of this PhD, and the requirements of each hosting institutes, the research was split accordingly into two parts:; At Lehigh University, under the supervision of Prof. Herman F. Nied, a full three-dimensional finite element program was developed in order to simulate the mechanical deformation during the process of thermoforming. The material behavior is considered hyperelastic with the property of incompressibility. The deformed structure may exhibit symmetries and may use a large choice of boundary conditions. A contact procedure for molds and/or displacements caused by a plug was implemented to complete the similarity with the thermoforming process. The research focused on simulating the observed nonlinear behaviors and their instabilities. The author emphasized the impact of large deformation on the numerical results and demonstrated the need for a remeshing capability.; At the Ecole des Mines d'Albi, under the supervision of Prof. Fabrice Schmidt, an equi-biaxial rheometer was developed and built in order to determine the material properties during the process of thermoforming. Thermoplastic materials consist of long macromolecular chains that when stretched, during the process of sheet extrusion, exhibit a transversal isotropic behavior. The rheometer technique is the inflation of a circular membrane made of extruded thermoplastics. The resulting strain is identified by video analysis during the membrane inflation. This dissertation focused on technical issues related to heating with the goal of overcoming the difficulty of producing a homogeneous temperature distribution. |
