Creep effect plastics mechanical behavior

The mechanical behavior of plastics on time-dependent applied loading can cause different important effects on materials viscoelasticity. Loads applied for short times and at normal rates (Chapter 2) causes material response that is essentially elastic in character. However, under sustained load plastics, particularly TPs, tend to creep, a factor that is included in the design analysis. 

If this deformation field does not fulfill the geometrical compatibility, a strain tensor related to stress is generated. The constitutive equation, which represents the mechanical behavior of the material, relates this strain tensor and the stress tensor. Due to the memory effect of wood, this tensor has to be divided into two parts (1) an elastic strain, connected to the actual stress tensor and (2) a memory strain, which includes all the strain due to the history of that point (e can deal with plasticity, creep, mechanosorption, etc.). 

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