Characterizing and quantifying the transport of volatile species through polymeric materials is important in predicting the aging and compatibility of complex, multi-material systems. We are developing a joint experimental and modeling capability to characterize and quantify sorption and diffusion of volatile species through polymeric materials. The experiments measure the uptake or outgassing response of materials, via gravimetric analysis, as a function of vapor activity (i.e. relative humidity) and temperature. Our high-fidelity transport model includes (1) a triple-mode sorption model that includes Henry's law absorption, Langmuir adsorption, and molecular pooling of volatile-molecules, and (2) molecular diffusion. Using a 1D or 3D mesh we can simultaneously simulate the transport of mobile species through complex geometries and multi-material assemblies. Work is underway to include chemical reaction kinetics in the model, which will allow for a full reactive transport modeling capability that can be used to predict material aging and degradation in complex, multi-material systems. This talk will discuss our approach and our progress to date, which will include, model development and experimental work using on a variety of polymeric materials (e.g. polydimethsiloxanes, polyurethanes, perflorinated polymers, etc) to parameterize and validate the model.This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.

Modeling of sorption, diffusion, and chemical reactions in polymeric materials

248th National Meeting (2014)

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