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Background:

The mechanical behavior of elastomeric materials is known to be ratedependent and to exhibit hysteresis upon cyclic loading. Although these features of the rubbery constitutive response are well-recognized and important to its function, few models attempt to quantify these aspects of the mechanical response. For this reason Exponent offers a new material elastomer model subroutine [1-6] that accurately predicts the large strain- , time- and temperature dependent behavior of both filled and unfilled elastomers. The foundation of the model is that the mechanical behavior can be decomposed into two parts: an equilibrium network corresponding to the state that is approached in long time stress relaxation tests; and a second network capturing the non-linear rate-dependent deviation from the equilibrium state. The time-dependence of the second network is further assumed to be governed by the reptational motion of molecules having the ability to significantly change conformation, thereby relaxing the overall stress state.

Key Features of the User Material Model:

The user material model has been tested on a number of different elastomers (e.g. natural rubber, chloroprene rubber, NBR, ABR, EPDM, FKM, Viton, and Silicone rubber) and soft biological tissues. The material model has also been tested on elastomeric material with different types and amounts of filler particles. The material model contains 8 material constants that can be determined from uniaxial testing results.

Once the material model has been calibrated, the user material subroutine can be used to simulate arbitrary geometries and thermomechanical loading conditions. The influence of different amounts of filler particles is also directly obtained.
The user material subroutine has been developed to be easy to use and numerically stable. The subroutine is provided in source-code format and initial support for the code is provided. The subroutine has been designed to work with the commercial finite element packages ABAQUS/Standard, ABAQUS/Explicit (HKS, Inc.), and LS-DYNA (Livermore Software Technology Corp). If requested, the subroutine can be modified to work with other finite element packages.

Exponent Failure Analysis 21 Strathmore Road Natick, MA 01760

telephone: 508-652-8514 facsimile: 508-647-1788 jbergstrom@exponent.com

Case Studies
Time-Dependent Behavior of Filled Chloroprene Rubber The mechanical response of chloroprene rubber is characterized by hysteresis and time-dependence that increases with filler particle concentration. This behavior is seen in most elastomers and, as shown in the figure to the right, can be captured by the user material subroutine. In this case, the material parameters were found for one concentration of filler particles and the influence of the filler particles was separately determined by examining the change in equilibrium stress with fillers. Modeling of Soft Biological Tissues The ability of the user material model to capture the mechanical behavior of different soft biological tissues has recently been assessed [1]. The figure to the right shows the cyclic shear response of rat septal myocardium at a shear strain rate of 0.067/s. The figure shows that the predicted response is in good agreement with the experimental data.

References
[1] Bergstrom JS, Boyce MC, Constitutive Modeling of the time-dependent and cyclic loading of elastomers and application to soft biological tissues, Mechanics of Materials, Vol. 33, pp. 523530, 2001. [2] Bergstrom JS, Boyce MC, Deformation of Elastomeric Networks: Relation between Molecular Level Deformation and Classical Statistical Mechanics Models of Rubber Elasticity, Macromolecules, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 614-626, 2001. [3] Bergstrom JS, Boyce MC, Large Strain Time-Dependent Behavior of Filled Elastomers, Mechanics of Materials, Vol. 32, pp. 627-644, 2000. [4] Bergstrom JS, Boyce MC, Mechanical Behavior of Particle Filled Elastomers, Rubber Chem. Tech., Vol. 72, pp. 633-656, 1999. [5] Bergstrom JS, Large Strain Time-Dependent Behavior of Elastomeric Materials, Ph.D. Thesis, MIT, 1999. [6] Bergstrom JS, Boyce MC, Constitutive Modeling of the Large Strain Time-Dependent Behavior of Elastomers, J. Mech. Phys. Solids, Vol. 46, pp. 931-954, 1998. Exponent Failure Analysis 21 Strathmore Road Natick, MA 01760 telephone: 508-652-8514 facsimile: 508-647-1788 jbergstrom@exponent.com