Theoretical and Numerical Investigation of Environmental Effects on Mechanical Behavior of Biodegradable Polymers

Biodegradable polymers have widespread usages in the biomedical field, such as stents, sutures, scaffolds, and implants. Due to the importance of behavior of these materials exposed to environmental effects, whether in nature or the human body, extensive researches have been carried out in the last decade that most of them are experimental results and very few are theoretical results. These researches have mainly been performed for specific loading and temperature conditions and so on. For this purpose, in addition to validating the theoretical and empirical relationships derived through the experimental results, the effects of more complex conditions can be considered using the finite element method and numerical solution. In this paper, an analytical relationship extraction method has been presented, as well as the abilities and weaknesses of biodegradable polymers have been investigated by presenting the experimental results of biodegradable polymers. A numerical and finite element analysis is also provided to analyze the behavior of biodegradable polymers. The theoretical analysis and numerical simulation of biodegradable polymers have been carried out using the neo-Hookean hyperelastic model. First, the relationship of stress, versus the stretch has been derived using the strain energy of neo-Hookean material. Next, by assuming a degradation parameter, changes in the properties of the material exposed to environmental effects, according to the time in Abaqus Umat subroutine have been applied to the model. Finally, the accuracy of the simulation has been studied by a comparison between the experimental results and theoretical analyses with numerical solutions.