Prony series calculation for viscoelastic behavior modeling of structural adhesives from DMA data.

In product design is important to choose the correct material for a specific application. Viscoelastic behavior let us know how much energy the material can dissipate on its internal structure or either return it to the surroundings, and the property that describe this is the Complex Modulus G*, it is a complex quantity that can be separated in a real and an imaginary part called G' storage modulus and iG'' loss modulus respectively. These properties can be measured experimentally from a small material sample easily by performing Dynamical Mechanical Analysis (DMA). In Product Design process there are both, computational and physical validations and there is the need of improving computational studies by understanding the physics of each component. Viscoelastic characteristics of materials can be represented by Prony series, also known as relaxation modulus in function of time. Relaxation modulus can be defined in most of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) Software. In this article the procedure for calculating Prony Series from DMA data will be explained.