TY - JOUR A1 - Schilling, Markus A1 - Niebergall, Ute A1 - Marschall, Niklas A1 - Alig, I. A1 - Böhning, Martin T1 - A phenomenological criterion for an optical assessment of PE-HD fracture surfaces obtained from FNCT N2 - The full-notch creep test (FNCT) is a common test method to evaluate the environmental stress cracking (ESC) behavior of high-density polyethylene (PE-HD), e.g. for container materials. The test procedure as specified in ISO 16770 provides a comparative measure of the resistance against ESC using the time to failure of PE-HD specimens under constant mechanical load in a well-defined liquid test environment. Since the craze-crack damage mechanism underlying the ESC phenomenon is associated with brittle failure, the occurrence of a predominantly brittle fracture surface is a prerequisite to consider an FNCT measurement as representative for ESC, i.e. a time to failure dominated by craze-crack propagation. The craze-crack propagation continuously reduces the effective residual cross-sectional area of the specimen during the test, which results in a corresponding increase of the effective mechanical stress. Thus, a transition to ductile shear deformation is inevitable at later stages of the test, leading usually to a pronounced central ligament. Therefore, an optical evaluation of FNCT fracture surfaces concerning their brittleness is essential. An enhanced imaging analysis of FNCT fracture surfaces enables a detailed assessment of craze-crack Propagation during ESC. In this study, laser scanning microscopy (LSM) was employed to evaluate whether FNCT fracture surfaces are representative with respect to craze-crack propagation and ESC. Based on LSM height data, a phenomenological criterion is proposed to assess the validity of distinct FNCT measurements. This criterion is supposed to facilitate a quick evaluation of FNCT results in practical routine testing. Its applicability is verified on a sample basis for seven different commercial PE-HD container materials. KW - Environmental stress cracking (ESC) KW - Full notch creep test (FNCT) KW - Laser scanning microscopy (LSM) KW - Fracture surfaces KW - Optical criterion of brittleness PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-521012 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymertesting.2020.107002 VL - 94 SP - 107002 PB - Elsevier Ltd. CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-52101 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schilling, Markus A1 - Marschall, Niklas A1 - Niebergall, Ute A1 - Wachtendorf, Volker A1 - Böhning, Martin T1 - Characteristics of environmental stress cracking of PE-HD induced by biodiesel and diesel fuels N2 - In the context of the increasing effect of carbon dioxide emissions on the global climate biodiesel produced from renewable sources has emerged as a promising contender replacing fossil fuels, especially in long-range transport vehicles, using existing engines and infrastructure. High-density polyethylene is one of the prevailing materials for pipe and container applications for storage and transport of such fuels, both, from fossil and renewable resources. The contact with the respective fuels raises questions concerning material compatibility as biodiesel exhibits significant differences compared to conventional diesel fuel affecting its sorption and plasticization behavior in polyethylene. In this study, its behavior with respect to environmental stress cracking, considered one of the most frequent damage mechanisms leading to failure of polymer parts and packaging, was evaluated using the well-established Full Notch Creep Test. This approach allows for a detailed fracture surface analysis using imaging techniques, such as optical and laser scanning microscopy, as well as infrared spectroscopy. Comparing the environmental stress cracking behavior in standard surfactant solutions with that in biodiesel and diesel, respective crack propagation rates, showing different levels of acceleration, were determined and details of the underlying mechanisms could be revealed. Furthermore, the specific infrared absorption of the biodiesel’s ester functionality allows its semi-quantitative determination on the fracture surface of the tested specimens after failure. Thus, a preferred uptake of sorptive fluids in the fracture zone due to local morphological changes of the polyethylene could be directly evidenced by infrared spectroscopy. KW - Environmental stress cracking (ESC) KW - Full notch creep test (FNCT) KW - Confocal laser scanning microscopy (LSM) KW - Biodiesel KW - Diesel PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-608591 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymertesting.2024.108547 SN - 0142-9418 VL - 138 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-60859 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schilling, Markus A1 - Marschall, Niklas A1 - Niebergall, Ute A1 - Böhning, Martin T1 - Dataset of comprehensive Full-notch creep tests (FNCT) of selected high-density polyethylene (PE-HD) materials N2 - The dataset provided in this repository comprises data obtained from a series of full-notch creep tests (FNCT) performed on selected high-density polyethylene (PE-HD) materials (for further details, see section 1 Materials in this document) in accordance with the corresponding standard ISO 16770. The FNCT is one of the mechanical testing procedures used to characterize polymer materials with respect to their environmental stress cracking (ESC) behavior. It is widely applied for PE-HD materials, that are predominantly used for pipe and container applications. It is based on the determination of the time to failure for a test specimen under constant mechanical load in a well-defined and temperature controlled liquid environment. The test device used here also allows for continuous monitoring of applied force, specimen elongation and temperature. KW - Polyethylene KW - Environmental Stress Cracking KW - Full-notch creep test KW - PE-HD KW - Crack growth PY - 2023 DO - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10143351 PB - Zenodo CY - Geneva AN - OPUS4-58835 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schilling, Markus T1 - Full-Notch Creep Test Ontology (ontoFNCT) N2 - This is the stable version of the full-notch creep test ontology (OntoFNCT) that ontologically represents the full-notch creep test. OntoFNCT has been developed in accordance with the corresponding test standard ISO 16770:2019-09 Plastics - Determination of environmental stress cracking (ESC) of polyethylene - Full-notch creep test (FNCT). The OntoFNCT provides conceptualizations that are supposed to be valid for the description of full-notch creep tests and associated data in accordance with the corresponding test standard. By using OntoFNCT for storing full-notch creep test data, all data will be well structured and based on a common vocabulary agreed on by an expert group (generation of FAIR data) which is meant to lead to enhanced data interoperability. This comprises several data categories such as primary data, secondary data and metadata. Data will be human and machine readable. The usage of OntoFNCT facilitates data retrieval and downstream usage. Due to a close connection to the mid-level PMD core ontology (PMDco), the interoperability of full-notch creep test data is enhanced and querying in combination with other aspects and data within the broad field of materials science and engineering (MSE) is facilitated. The class structure of OntoFNCT forms a comprehensible and semantic layer for unified storage of data generated in a full-notch creep test including the possibility to record data from analysis and re-evaluation. Furthermore, extensive metadata allows to assess data quality and reliability. Following the open world assumption, object properties are deliberately low restrictive and sparse. KW - Ontology KW - Full-Notch Creep Test KW - FNCT KW - Knowledge Representation KW - Semantic Web Technologies KW - Data Structures KW - Data Management PY - 2024 UR - https://github.com/MarkusSchilling/ontoFNCT/blob/4abce82852190a5e444d302da077aa7404f433f0/ontoFNCT.ttl UR - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MarkusSchilling/ontoFNCT/main/ontoFNCT.ttl PB - GitHub CY - San Francisco, CA, USA AN - OPUS4-59815 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rosenbusch, Sjard Mathis A1 - Diercks, Philipp A1 - Kindrachuk, Vitaliy A1 - Unger, Jörg F. T1 - Integrating custom constitutive models into FEniCSx: A versatile approach and case studies N2 - The development and integration of user-defined constitutive relationships into finite element (FE) tools using standardized interfaces play a pivotal role in advancing the capabilities of FE solvers for structural mechanics applications. While commercial FE solvers like Abaqus and Ansys have designed their interfaces to provide custom stresses, tangents, and updated history variables, the open-source solver FEniCSx remains efficient only when the constitutive update has an analytical representation. This restricts the application of FEniCSx for non-linear structural mechanics. Since FEniCSx has become a powerful and popular open-source tool for solving partial differential equations, particularly due to its automatic computation of Hessians, we aim to develop a generalized interface to enhance its capability for constitutive modeling. This approach will address complex constitutive equations that require iterative solutions at the quadrature point level. Specific implementation challenges, such as using return-mapping procedures, can then be managed commonly. The provided interface for custom constitutive models offers a versatile way to implement them in various languages, including C++, Python, Rust, and Fortran. Finally, with UMATs for viscoplastic models as an example, we demonstrate how existing user subroutines can be incorporated into the interface and utilized within the FEniCSx framework. KW - Finite element method KW - Constitutive models KW - FEniCSx KW - UMAT KW - Rust KW - Python KW - C++ PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-630439 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advengsoft.2025.103922 SN - 0965-9978 VL - 206 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-63043 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - GEN A1 - Rosenbusch, Sjard Mathis A1 - Diercks, Philipp A1 - Kindrachuk, Vitaliy A1 - Unger, Jörg F. T1 - Integrating custom constitutive models into FEniCSx: A versatile approach and case studies N2 - The development and integration of user-defined constitutive relationships into finite element (FE) tools using standardized interfaces play a pivotal role in advancing the capabilities of FE solvers for structural mechanics applications. While commercial FE solvers like Abaqus and Ansys have designed their interfaces to provide custom stresses, tangents, and updated history variables, the open-source solver FEniCSx remains efficient only when the constitutive update has an analytical representation. This restricts the application of FEniCSx for non-linear structural mechanics. Since FEniCSx has become a powerful and popular open-source tool for solving partial differential equations, particularly due to its automatic computation of Hessians, we aim to develop a generalized interface to enhance its capability for constitutive modeling. This approach will address complex constitutive equations that require iterative solutions at the quadrature point level. Specific implementation challenges, such as using return-mapping procedures, can then be managed commonly. The provided interface for custom constitutive models offers a versatile way to implement them in various languages, including C++, Python, Rust, and Fortran. Finally, using the example of UMATs for viscoplastic models, we demonstrate how available user subroutines can be incorporated into the interface while maintaining computational performance of FEniCSx comparable to that of Abaqus. KW - Finite element method KW - Constitutive models KW - FEniCSx KW - UMAT KW - Rust KW - Python KW - C++ PY - 2024 DO - https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13980988 PB - Zenodo CY - Geneva AN - OPUS4-62112 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schilling, Markus A1 - Marschall, Niklas A1 - Niebergall, Ute A1 - Böhning, Martin T1 - Modernizing FNCT data handling in polymer labs: Towards efficient management N2 - A streamlined Python-based workflow for transforming Full-Notch Creep Test (FNCT) data into organized, machine-actionable formats is presented. The workflow automates the conversion of raw FNCT data from classic CSV and Excel files into structured outputs that facilitate future semantic integration. Emphasizing practical data handling, the approach includes automation scripts for efficient data extraction, transformation, and storage, which culminate in well-ordered files. This transformation paves the way for potential semantic data integration and facilitates access for users with varying levels of digital experience to enhanced data management in polymer research and testing. KW - PE-HD KW - Full-Notch Creep Test (FNCT) KW - Environmental Stress Cracking (ESC) KW - Data Interoperability KW - FAIR Data KW - Semantic Data PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-637826 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.commatsci.2025.114085 SN - 0927-0256 VL - 259 SP - 1 EP - 5 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-63782 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schilling, Markus A1 - Niebergall, Ute A1 - Marschall, Niklas A1 - Meinel, Dietmar A1 - Böhning, Martin T1 - Relation of craze to crack length during slow crack growth phenomena in high‐density polyethylene N2 - The craze‐crack mechanism occurring in high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) causing slow crack growth and environmental stress cracking is investigated in detail with respect to the relation of crack length and the related craze zone. This is essential for the understanding of the resulting features of the formed fracture surface and their interpretation in the context of the transition from crack propagation to ductile shear deformation. It turns out that an already formed craze zone does not inevitably result in formation of a propagating crack, but could also undergo ductile failure. For the examination, the full notch creep test (FNCT) was employed with a subsequent advanced fracture surface analysis that was performed using various imaging techniques: light microscopy, laser scanning microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X‐ray micro computed tomography scan. FNCT specimens were progressively damaged for increasing durations under standard test conditions applying Arkopal, the standard surfactant solution, and biodiesel as test media were used to analyze the stepwise growth of cracks and crazes. From considerations based on well‐established fracture mechanics approaches, a theoretical correlation between the length of the actual crack and the length of the preceding craze zone was established that could be evidenced and affirmed by FNCT fracture surface analysis. Moreover, the yield strength of a HDPE material exposed to a certain medium as detected by a classic tensile test was found to be the crucial value of true stress to induce the transition from crack propagation due to the craze‐crack mechanism to shear deformation during FNCT measurements. Highlights - Progress of crack formation in high‐density polyethylene is analyzed by different imaging techniques - Determined growth rates depend on distinction between craze zone and crack - The ratio of the present crack to the anteceding craze zone is validated theoretically - The transition from crack propagation to ductile shear deformation is identified - An already formed craze zone may still fail by ductile mechanisms KW - Craze-crack mechanism KW - Environmental stress cracking (ESC) KW - Full notch creep test (FNCT) KW - Laser scanning microscopy (LSM) KW - Slow crack growth (SCG) KW - X-ray computed tomography (CT) PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-601831 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/pen.26698 SN - 1548-2634 VL - 64 IS - 6 SP - 2387 EP - 2403 PB - Wiley AN - OPUS4-60183 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schilling, Markus A1 - Marschall, Niklas A1 - Niebergall, Ute A1 - Wachtendorf, Volker A1 - Böhning, Martin T1 - Unveiling Effects of Biodiesel and Diesel on Environmental Stress Cracking of PE-HD N2 - The behavior of high‐density polyethylene with respect to resistance against environmental stress cracking (ESC) is usually regarded as an inherent material property being specific for respective types of PE‐HD and tested using standardized methods, conditions, and also standard testing liquids (usually aqueous surfactant solutions). On the other hand, for practical applications the ESC behavior of those polymeric materials, commonly used for pipes or containers, in contact with other liquids (e.g., fuels) is often of relevant interest, but for a reasonable assessment, where consistent benchmark data for a direct comparison are often missing, it is essential to determine the actually prevailing failure mode and classify it related to crack propagation or other mechanisms. Using the well‐established Full Notch Creep Test, which favorably allows for a detailed microscopic fracture surface analysis after failure, the behavior of two typical PE‐HD types for container applications is investigated in biodiesel and diesel and compared to a standard surfactant solution. This enables a clear identification of characteristic features of the interaction of biodiesel and diesel as sorptive fuels in contact with the polymer, revealing the complex interplay of sorption and plasticization as well as ESC inducing effects on PE‐HD, which could be clearly shown for both fuels. KW - Biodiesel KW - Confocal laser scanning microscopy (LSM) KW - Diesel KW - Full notch creep test (FNCT) KW - Plasticization PY - 2025 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-650525 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/pen.70239 SN - 0032-3888 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken (NJ) AN - OPUS4-65052 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -