A study on an incompressible polymeric pressurized vessel subjected to bulk degradation

To study the mechanical behavior of an incompressible polymeric degradable vessel subjected to the neo-Hookean constitutive model, two solution frameworks are introduced. One is combining a recently developed semi-analytical method and the α -family time approximation (hybrid method). The other is the Standard Galerkin Finite Element Method (SGFEM), which is implemented by providing a script in the FlexPDE commercial software. A deformation-induced evolution law is used to study the dependence of material properties upon time and position in the polymeric vessel during bulk degradation. The convergence of the two proposed methods on degradable vessel responses under the axisymmetric plane-strain conditions is seen. Although the hybrid method, unlike the SGFEM, is implemented as an iteration-based algorithm, it uses highly acceptable central processing unit time because it can directly solve differential equations without converting variables. The FlexPDE method is much easier to extend to more complex case studies because the hybrid method is based on an analytical approach. It is found that less pressure is required to maintain the incompressibility of the material during the degradation. The material response to incompressibility decreases more sharply in the inner radius of the vessel. Initially, the hoop stress decreases in the inner radius but eventually reaches more than its virgin value.