An Affine Micro‐Sphere Model for Strain‐Induced Crystallization in Rubbery Polymers

Natural rubber crystallizes under stretch and its amorphous structure becomes semi‐crystalline. Tensile strength, fatigue life and crack growth resistance of rubber increases with crystallization. Crystallization leads to a hysteresis in the stress‐stretch diagram of rubber, see [1]. Recently, computational modeling of strain‐induced crystallization has drawn the attention of researchers, see [2, 3] and [4]. In this work, we propose a micromechanically motivated material model for strain‐induced crystallization in rubbers. To this end, we construct a microscopic model for a single crystallizing polymer chain based on non‐Gaussian chain statistics . A thermodynamically consistent evolution framework for crystallization in the chain level is proposed. The chain model is then integrated into the affine micro‐sphere model . Finally, numerical results obtained by the model are compared to experimental data. (© 2017 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)