Experimental and Computational Characterization of Elastomer-Fabrics Produced by Electro-Spinning

The overall goal of the thesis is the development of a computational mechanics framework for the prediction of the mechanical behavior of fabrics produced from electro-spinning of elastomers. The computational model will be based on the Finite Element Methods within the framework of non-linear continuums mechanics, including large deformation theory and inelastic constitutive material models. In parallel, goal oriented experimental setups will be designed to produce well defined probes and related experiments for the characterization of the mechanical behavior of single fibers in dependency of their basic material composition as well as their geometrical length scale.