Modelling creep responses of plantain fibre reinforced HDPE (PFRHDPE) for elevated temperature applications

The growth in applications of Plantain Fibre Reinforced HDPE (PFRHDPE) has increased the importance of understanding the time-dependent viscoelastic properties such as creep resistance. This study focused on the determination of creep behaviour of a novel PFRHDPE designed for elevated temperatures applications. The creep responses of PFRHDPE were experimentally determined in line with ASTM D2290 and modelled for elevated temperature applications using the classical creep models, classical viscoelastic models and the time temperature superposition approach. Creep strain, creep stress, creep modulus and creep stress relaxation were modelled and analyzed. The PFRHDPE exhibited the characteristic of the unrelaxed and relaxed moduli of material to accommodate applications at elevated temperatures. The superposition method showed PFRHDPE to have moduli of 66 MPa and 2.26 MPa for one year and fifty years of operations respectively. The relaxation stresses were also evaluated as 9.24 MPa, 9.15 MPa and 12.96 MPa for the conditions investigated showing the new material as able to accommodate the constant loads of 25 MPa and 35 MPa under the elevated temperatures of 30 °C and 60 °C.