Fatigue characteristics of vulcanized natural rubber for automotive engine mounting

In order to investigate fatigue characteristics of vulcanized natural rubber (NR), fatigue tests are carried out under various stress ratios R (R = minimum stress / maximum stress). It was considered that the fatigue cracks were initiated from flaws in very early stage of total life. The fatigue damage process was almost the fatigue crack propagation process and it is independent of R. The crack growth rate was proportional to the crack length to about the first power, when the crack length was defined as the length of the direction perpendicular to the loading direction. Miner's rule was examined to observe the fatigue crack behavior and checked by using two-step loading fatigue tests experimentally. It seems Miner's rule has a possibility to predict fatigue lives.