A UNIFIED INELASTICITY AND DAMAGE MECHANICS FOR RUBBER-LIKE MATERIALS

Abstract

The nonlinearities observed in the behavior of rubber and polymeric materials are influenced not only by the far-field stress conditions but also by the morphology, microstructures, and changes at the meso-level such as kinks, crosslinking, and micro tearing. Considering constants temperature applications, the occurrence of microtearing has a significant contribution on the performance of polymers, soft tissues and other rubber-like materials. In this paper, a unified damage mechanics and nonlinear elasticity approach is presented to model nonlinear behavior of rubber-like materials under constant temperatures. The theory is cast within the general framework of the internal variable theory of thermodynamics with large deformations where the Clausius-Duhem inequality is provoked to develop general damage potential. The strain energy density function is formulated in terms of an effective Lagrangian strain tensor that evolves with cumulative damage as cracking and micro-tearing take places. Piola-Kirchhoff (PK) stress tensor is presented and a new form of the damage response tensor is proposed. The model prediction is illustrated against experimental results with good agreement.