title: Microstructural design of biopolymer blends and related elasticity with imperfect interfacial bonding.
abstract: The underlined microstructure of biopolymer blends reflects complexity of mass and heat transfer during processing. In the present work, such complexity is apprehended using simple and intuitive way to generate typical microstructures resulting from thermomoulding processing. The starting point is a simple generation scheme of the feed powder approximated as circular heat sources. Finite element computation of a transient thermal analysis is performed and the resulting nodal fields are again converted into 2D microstructures. The final microstructures prove to be similar in all geometrical characteristics starch-zein blends. Elasticity response of these blends is explored using finite element computation. Sensitivity analysis is performed to derive the effect of perfect and imperfect interface properties on the mechanical performance of the biopolymer blend. Predictions show a significant role of interfaces which trigger the elasticity properties of the biopolymer blends much larger than the contrast in phase properties. This study demonstrates that nonlinear interface effect on elasticity behaviour is related to geometrical percolation that occurs at specific phase content.
authors.affiliation: LUNAM Université Nantes Angers Le Mans, CNRS, GEPEA, UMR 6144, IUT de Nantes, 2 Avenue du Professeur Jean Rouxel, 44475 Carquefou Cédex, France.
authors.forename: Sofiane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Belhabib
authors.affiliation: INRA, Research Unit BIA UR1268, Rue Geraudiere, F-44316 Nantes, France. Electronic address: sofiane.guessasma@nantes.inra.fr.
authors.forename: Sofiane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guessasma
authors.affiliation: Arts et Métiers - ParisTech, MSMP Lab., EA7350, rue Saint-Dominique, 51008 Châlons-en-Champagne, France.
authors.forename: Halim
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haddadi
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001704:Biopolymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D055119:Elastic Modulus; D004548:Elasticity; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal
chemical_list: D001704:Biopolymers
keywords: Biopolymer blend; Elasticity behaviour; Imperfect interface; Microstructure