Technical elastomers are indispensable in the field of mechanical engineering, due to their material properties. Based on their damping characteristic, they are often used to avoid load peaks and to influence the vibration behavior of dynamically loaded systems. Nevertheless, elastomers have not been investigated as intensively as other materials in the field of damage accumulation and lifetime prediction.
This paper presents a simulation model for lifetime prediction of elastomer components. The lifetime is defined as the number of load cycles till the global damage reaches the value 1. This damage is calculated by a failure criterion based on the change of a characteristic value like the dynamic stiffness degradation from a finite-element (FE) simulation. The presented lifetime prediction model uses a damage-dependent material model (Yeoh-Model) and a nonlinear damage accumulation model (nlSAM), which was developed at the chair of Engineering Design and Plastics Machinery at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Both models are calibrated by means of experimental data from dynamically loaded elastomer components. The nlSAM computes the local damage for each finite element depending on material stresses and pre-damage. The dynamic stiffness degradation is a result of locally changed material properties in the FE simulation due to the damage of each element.
Finally, the lifetime prediction for unknown loads and different component geometries of the elastomer is carried out, which shows good agreement with the experimental data.
