Özet:
To investigate the effect of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) addition and consequently porosity,
two different sets of membranes are manufactured, since PVP is a widely used poring agent which
has an impact on the mechanical properties of the membrane material. The first set (PAN 1) includes
polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and the necessary solvent while the second set (PAN 2) is made of PAN and
PVP. These membranes are put through several characterisation processes including tensile testing.
The obtained data are used to model the static behaviour of the membranes with different geometries
but similar loading and boundary conditions that represent their operating conditions. This modelling
process is undertaken by using the finite element method. The main idea is to investigate how
geometry affects the load-carrying capacity of the membranes. Alongside membrane modelling, their
materials are modelled with representative elements with hexagonal and rectangular pore arrays (RE)
to understand the impact of porosity on the mechanical properties. Exploring the results, the best
geometry is found as the elliptic membrane with the aspect ratio 4 and the better RE as the hexagonal
array which can predict the elastic properties with an approximate error of 12%.
