A physically based method to represent the thermo-mechanical behaviour of elastomers (Q1384724)

The author proposes a nonlinear and temperature-dependent viscoplastic model to describe the thermomechanical behaviour of an elastomer, more specifically carbon black filled rubber. The approach is first explained on a uniaxial model, and the ideas are then transferred to the three-dimensional case. The author introduces two multiplicative decompositions of the deformation gradient tensor into elastic and inelastic parts: the first decomposition is defined with respect to a rate-dependent overstress, whereas the second one with respect to a rate-independent hysteretic part of the equilibrium stress. Hence two intermediate configurations are induced, which lead to different decompositions of the material strain tensor into elastic and inelastic parts. Inelastic parts are assumed to be the internal variables of the theory and are given by appropriate, thermodynamically consistent evolution equations. It is further assumed that the free energy density can be expressed as the sum of a term depending on the total strain and the temperature, the terms depending on two elastic strains in the intermediate configurations and the temperature, and a term depending only on the temperature. Then the use of the Clausius-Duhem inequality provides constitutive relations and evolution equations for internal variables. Numerical simulations and experimental observations are compared, and a very good argreement is found at room temperature.