Comparison of micromechanical models for the prediction of the effective elastic properties of semicrystalline polymers: Application to polyethylene

In this paper, we discuss the application of different micromechanical composite models to compute the effective elastic properties of semicrystalline polymers. The morphology of these two-phase materials consists of crystalline lamellae and amorphous domains which may form a spherulitic microstructure. The selected models are the Mori-Tanaka type models, the Double-Inclusion models, and the Self-Consistent models. We applied these composite estimates to both fully isotropic and transverse isotropic transcrystalline polyethylene. The results from these different models are compared to the experimental results for different crystallinities. The Generalized Mori-Tanaka (GMT) model and the Self-Consistent Composite-Inclusion (SCCI) model give the best predictions of the effective elastic constants compared to the other models.