Engineering Mechanics of Elastomeric Composites: General Framework for Efficient Computational Implementation

Mechanical modeling of elastomeric composites (EC) is usually associated with two types of challenges. The first type is challenges of elastomeric deformation itself, such as severe geometrical and physical non-linearity, incompressibility, hysteretic response, etc. The second type is composite-related challenges including, among others, anisotropy of material properties, heterogeneous structure, complex damage networks and their numerous mechanisms, etc. Although both types of challenges can be successfully addressed independently (i.e., either isotropic homogeneous elastomers or linear-elastic composites), their consideration together is still a difficult dilemma to satisfy desired predictive fidelity and cost/robustness of corresponding modeling solutions. Thus, the objective of this study is development of an efficient general framework for analysis of EC materials and structures specifically for design applications. It summarizes recently developed solutions in a form of integrated approach for robust FEA implementation and systematically covers a) quasi-homogeneous EC; b) laminated EC; c) damage initiation and growth in EC; d) hysteretic behavior of EC; and e) EC structures. Numerical results and examples are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed framework and its convenience for engineering analysis.