Visco-hyperelastic model with internal state variable coupled with discontinuous damage concept under total Lagrangian formulation

The silica-filled rubber material presented in this paper exhibits nonlinear elasticity, nonlinear rate dependence and stress-softening effect under cyclic loading. In order to model the material behavior in a finite element code, the internal state variable concept is considered for finite deformation viscoelasticity. Moreover, the so-called Mullins' effect is taken into account by using a discontinuous damage concept. A total Lagrangian formulation with incompressibility constraint is adopted in the finite element code. The constitutive equations with their optimized set of parameters are validated by comparing the simulated results with experimental data. This result is very useful for the fatigue lifetime analysis of the investigated silica-filled rubber material. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.