Multiaxial fatigue life calculation and optimal design of silicone rubber composites

Abstract

Based on the crack propagation theory, the multiaxial fatigue life algorithm of rubber was developed using Python language and verified by experiments. The fatigue lives of silicone rubber dumbbell uniaxial tensile specimens, plane tensile specimens and cross biaxial tensile specimens were calculated. In order to take into account the power generation performance and fatigue life of silicone rubber composites, the total energy density (PI ) was used to evaluate the comprehensive properties of the composites. The results showed that through the PI evaluation, the strain energy density (W) was the largest and the ratio of cracking energy density to W was the smallest under equibiaxial tension. Silicone rubber may have the best comprehensive properties under equibiaxial tension.

Keywords

• silicone rubber
• composite
• fatigue life
• finite element numerical simulation
• crack pro-pagation
• optimal design