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A method to develop a unified fatigue life prediction model for filled natural rubbers under uniaxial loads
Author(s) -
Wang XiaoLi,
Shangguan WenBin,
Rakheja Subhash,
Li WuCheng,
Yu Bin
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
fatigue and fracture of engineering materials and structures
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.887
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1460-2695
pISSN - 8756-758X
DOI - 10.1111/ffe.12081
Subject(s) - natural rubber , materials science , goodman relation , structural engineering , vibration fatigue , uniaxial tension , range (aeronautics) , amplitude , fatigue testing , composite material , compression (physics) , strain (injury) , engineering , fracture mechanics , ultimate tensile strength , stress concentration , physics , medicine , quantum mechanics
ABSTRACT Rubber components are widely used in many fields because of their superior elastic properties. Fatigue failures, commonly encountered in rubber components, however, remain a critical issue. In this study, the effect of strain ratio R on the fatigue life of filled natural rubbers used in automotive mounts is investigated experimentally and numerically. A uniaxial tension/compression fatigue experiment was conducted on dumb‐bell cylindrical rubber specimens subject to loads representing different R ratios. The experimental fatigue data are used to formulate two preliminary fatigue models based on peak strain and strain amplitude as the damage parameters. The deficiencies of these two models in predicting fatigue life over a wide range of R ratios are discussed, and an alternative life prediction model is proposed. The proposed model incorporates the effect of R ratio using an equivalent strain amplitude. It is shown that the proposed model could effectively predict fatigue life over a wide range of R ratios with an improved accuracy.