Influence of moisture content and time on the mechanical behavior of polymer material

The effects of moisture content and time on mechanical behavior of polymer materials are investigated both theoretically and experimentally in this paper. An equivalence relationship between time intervals and the moisture content for polymer nylon-6 has been established by way of experimental observation and measured results. The relationship shows that there exists equivalence between moisture and service time in affecting mechanical properties. In other words, an increase in moisture can be replaced by prolonging acting time in producing the same effect on material properties. Consequently, a moisture-time superposition principle is presented based on the experimental results and the analogy of temperature-time superposition principle. Numerical results such as stress-strain curves with different moisture contents are presented to verify the applicability and correctness. The proposed method appears very promising in study on the effect of moisture content on mechanical behavior of polymer materials.