Advanced Rubber Testing and Innovative Tear Fatigue Analysis of Elastomers Under Realistic Multiaxial Loading Conditions

During the last years there are a couple of advanced methods, which became available to characterize the deformation and tear fatigue analysis of elastomers in greater detail.

For a complex constitutive description of materials behavior tests under uniaxial as well as multi-axial loading are established. A complex test program gives the possibility of directly measuring of complex material behavior and enables to parametrize constitutive equations to deliver necessary parameter for FE-simulation.

Advanced 1d tear fatigue analysis and 2d (biaxial) tear fatigue analysis with improved estimation of the crack contour length as well as strain field analysis around the crack tip is performed.

Fracture analysis in different stress configurations can be described using the J-integral method to separate energetic contributions due to dissipative mechanisms within the materials as well as the crack growth.

Following deformation under constraint geometry can by dilatometry and x-ray tomography enables the investigation of a different failure pattern due to cavitation compared to common uniaxial loading.

Online-methods like synchrotron x-ray scattering enable to follow structural changes during deformation and fracture of rubber. So it becomes possible to follow the time dependence of strain induces crystallization (SIC) in natural rubber and its influence on the mechanical (stress-strain) behavior.

The presented characterization techniques support the rubber industry to improve the fundamental understanding of materials behavior and to develop advanced materials.