Project Abstract

In recent years, electrospinning has gained popularity as a unique manufacturing technique in different fields due to the promising features of the products. Although multiple attempts have been made 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 an electrospun nanofibrous polymeric membrane. The model is developed based on the consideration of individual fibre response and irreversible inter-fibre interaction as well as deformation-induced fibre 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 the PVDF electrospun polymeric membrane.