Strain stiffening of non-colloidal hard sphere suspensions dispersed in Newtonian fluid near liquid-and-crystal coexistence region

Concentrated hard sphere suspensions often show an interesting nonlinear behavior, called strain stiffening, in which the viscosity or modulus starts to increase at critical strain amplitude. Sudden increase of rheological properties is similar to shear thickening; however, the particle dynamics in the strain stiffening under oscillatory shear flow does not necessarily coincide with the mechanism of shear thickening under step shear flow. In this study, we have systematically investigated the nonlinear rheology of non-colloidal (>1???m) hard sphere suspensions dispersed in Newtonian fluid near liquid-and-crystal coexistence region in order to better understand the strain stiffening behavior. The suspensions near liquid-and-crystal coexistence region are known to locally form the closed packing structure. The critical strain amplitude which is the onset of strain stiffening was different for the storage and loss modulus. But they converged to each other as the suspension forms a more crystalline structure. The critical strain amplitude was independent of medium viscosity, imposed angular frequency, and particle size, but was strongly dependent upon particle volume fraction. The onset of strain stiffening was explained in terms of shear-induced collision due to particle motion in the closed packing structure. Nonlinear stress wave-forms, which reflect the micro-structural change, were observed with the onset of strain stiffening. During the strain stiffening, enhanced elastic stress before and after flow reversal was observed which originates from changes in the suspension microstructure. Nonlinearity of the shear stress in terms of Fourier intensity was extremely increased up to 0.55. Beyond the strain stiffening, the suspension responded liquid-like and the nonlinearity decreased but the elastic shear stress was still indicating the microstructure rearrangement within a cycle.     

Shear of rubber tube springs

Rubber tube springs consist basically of cylindrical rubber tubes bonded on their inner and outer curved surfaces to rigid cylindrical tubes. They are widely used as flexible linkages, for example in vehicle suspensions. Rotation of one rigid tube with respect to the other about their common axis subjects the rubber tube to azimuthal shear. Displacement of one rigid tube with respect to the other along their common axis puts the rubber tube into axial shear. Using FEA, we have calculated the stresses set up in both cases, for a long rubber tube of a non-linearly elastic (neo-Hookean) material. The results are compared for the two modes of deformation, and with analytical predictions where available. For a long tube the shear stresses are substantially independent of the end conditions, but the normal stresses are strongly affected, as found previously for sheared rectangular blocks [A.N. Gent, J.B. Suh, S.G. Kelly III, Mechanics of rubber shear springs, Int. J. Nonlinear Mech. 42 (2007) 241-249]. If the end surfaces are stress-free, unexpectedly large normal stresses are generated, even in azimuthal shear. These high tensile stresses are attributed to restraints at the inner and outer cylindrical boundaries that compensate for the absence of stresses on the end surfaces that would be needed to maintain a simple shear deformation. Thus, the boundary conditions affect the stresses everywhere (in contrast to an “end effect” that would diminish away from the ends). Small departures from complete incompressibility are found to lower the internal stresses markedly, and even cause the sign of the stresses to be reversed.     

Ogden-type energies for nematic elastomers

Ogden-type extensions of the free-energy densities currently used to model the mechanical behavior of nematic elastomers are proposed and analyzed. Based on a multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient into an elastic and a spontaneous or remanent part, they provide a suitable framework to study the stiffening response at high imposed stretches. Geometrically linear versions of the models (Taylor expansions at order two) are provided and discussed. These small strain theories provide a clear illustration of the geometric structure of the underlying energy landscape (the energy grows quadratically with the distance from a non-convex set of spontaneous strains or energy wells). The comparison between small strain and finite deformation theories may also be useful in the opposite direction, inspiring finite deformation generalizations of small strain theories currently used in the mechanics of active and phase-transforming materials. The energy well structure makes the free-energy densities non-convex. Explicit quasi-convex envelopes are provided, and applied to compute the stiffening response of a specimen tested in plane strain extension experiments (pure shear).     

A Kolsky Torsion Bar Technique for Characterization of Dynamic Shear Response of Soft Materials

A novel Kolsky torsion bar technique is developed and successfully utilized to characterize the high strain rate shear response of a rate-independent end-linked polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) gel rubber with a shear modulus of about10 KPa. The results show that the specimen deforms uniformly under constant strain rate and the measured dynamic shear modulus follows reasonably well the trend determined by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) at lower strain rates. For comparison, Kolsky compression bar experiments are also performed on the same gel material with annular disk specimens. The dynamic moduli obtained from compression experiments, however, are an order of magnitude higher than those obtained by the torsional technique, due to the pressure caused by the radial inertia and end constraints.     

Chemorheological response of elastomers at elevated temperatures: Experiments and simulations

An experimental study and a method for simulating the constitutive response of elastomers at temperatures in the chemorheological range (90-150 °C for natural rubber) are presented. A comprehensive set of uniaxial experiments for a variety of prescribed temperature histories is performed on natural rubber specimens that exhibit finite elasticity, entropic stiffening with temperature, viscoelasticity, scission, and oxygen diffusion/reaction effects. The simulation approach is based on a multi-network framework for finite elasticity, isothermal incompressibility, thermal expansion, and temperature-induced degradation. The model extends previous work to account for kinetics of scission for arbitrary time-varying temperature histories and incorporates the effects of viscoelastic relaxation and diffusion-limited oxidative scission. The model is calibrated to experiments performed on a commercially-available filled natural rubber material, and numerical simulations are compared favorably to experiments for a variety of temperature histories.     

宽γ辐照剂量范围内硅泡沫本构模型研究

基于实验和理论建模研究了白炭黑增强硅泡沫材料在γ辐照剂量范围为0~1000kGy作用后的单轴压缩力学行为。实验结果表明辐照导致硅泡沫出现明显硬化现象,初始杨氏模量和固定应变下应力幅值均随γ辐照剂量近似线性增加。辐照后硅泡沫泡孔结构完整,硅橡胶基体中高分子交联反应占主导,且交联密度随辐照剂量线性增大。基于实验分析结果,实现了Ogden Hyperfoam超弹本构模型参数与辐照剂量的关联。结果表明初始剪切模量参数与辐照剂量成线性关系,硬化指数和泊松比参数与辐照剂量无关。基于应力应变实验数据拟合得到模型参数,并与未参与拟合的实验数据对比,验证了模型的准确性,表明该模型能够表征宽辐照剂量范围内硅泡沫的压缩力学行为。     

宽γ辐照剂量范围内硅泡沫本构模型研究

基于实验和理论建模研究了白炭黑增强硅泡沫材料在γ辐照剂量范围为0~1000kGy作用后的单轴压缩力学行为。实验结果表明辐照导致硅泡沫出现明显硬化现象，初始杨氏模量和固定应变下应力幅值均随γ辐照剂量近似线性增加。辐照后硅泡沫泡孔结构完整，硅橡胶基体中高分子交联反应占主导，且交联密度随辐照剂量线性增大。基于实验分析结果，实现了Ogden Hyperfoam超弹本构模型参数与辐照剂量的关联。结果表明初始剪切模量参数与辐照剂量成线性关系，硬化指数和泊松比参数与辐照剂量无关。基于应力应变实验数据拟合得到模型参数，并与未参与拟合的实验数据对比，验证了模型的准确性，表明该模型能够表征宽辐照剂量范围内硅泡沫的压缩力学行为。     

On the modeling of thermo-mechanical phase transformations in solids

The present paper represents an effort to model coupled thero-mechanical effects in the mcroscopic response of solids that arise from the occurrence of phase transformations. A Helmholtz free energy potential is constructed to describe the response of the thermoelastic material to be considered. Apart from some considerations pertaining to properties of the hypothetical material, the analysis is carried out in the context of a simple problem, idealized from an experiment, in which an annular cylinder is deformed to a state of radially symmetric, finite anti-plane shear in the presence of differing inner and outer surface temperatures. After constructing all radially symmetric weak solutions involving at most a single surface of discontinuity of strain or temperature gradient, we determine the implications for quasi-static motions of the second law of thermodynamics. In particular, the results concerning creep as predicted by the present model are in qualitative agreement with the results of the motivating experiment.     

Influence of excitation amplitude on the characteristics of nonlinear butyl rubber isolators

The purpose of this study is to explore the advantages and characteristics of nonlinear butyl rubber (type IIR) isolators in vibratory shear by comparison with linear isolators. It is known that the mechanical properties of viscoelastic materials exhibit significant frequency and temperature dependence, and in some cases, nonlinear dynamic behavior as well. Nonlinear characteristics in shear deformation are reflected in mechanical properties such as stiffness and damping. Furthermore, even when the excitation amplitude is small the response amplitude may often be large enough that nonlinearities cannot be ignored. The treatment involves developing phenomenological models of the effective storage modulus and effective loss factor of a rubber isolator material as a function of excitation amplitude. The transmissibility of a nonlinear viscoelastic isolator is compared with that of a linear isolator using an equivalent linear damping coefficient. Forced resonance vibration and impedance tests are used to characterize nonlinear parameters and to measure the normalized transmissibility. It is found that as the excitation amplitude of the nonlinear viscoelastic isolator increases, the response amplitude decreases and the transmissibility is improved over that of the linear isolator for excitation frequency that exceeds a particular value governed by the temperature and excitation amplitude. The method of multiple scales and numerical simulations are used to predict the response characteristics of the isolator based on the phenomenological modeling under different values of system parameters.     

Mechanical properties of isolation bearings identified by a viscoelastic model

The Haringx theory is usually employed to describe the mechanical behavior of rubber bearings subjected to a compressive axial load and a lateral shear deformation, but it does not consider the damping effect. In order to study the behavior of isolation bearings which possess an energy-dissipation capacity, the explicit formulas for the horizontal stiffness of viscoelastic columns and the corresponded height reduction are derived by the method of variable separation. These explicit formulas are then applied to develop an identification procedure to find the shear modulus and loss factor of the rubber using the cyclic shear tests of isolation bearings. Through this identification procedure, the empirical formulas for the shear modulus and the loss factor of rubber are established as functions of the strain amplitude and the excitation frequency.     

Analysis of a high intensity shear zone between overlapping fiber ends in a polymer matrix composite

The formation of high intensity shear zones in a glass fiber reinforced thermoplast is studied numerically. The thermoplast is characterized by a finite strain elastic-viscoplastic constitutive relation and the calculations are carried out using a dynamic finite element program where plane strain conditions are assumed to prevail in the direction of the thickness. Different ratios of the elongation strain and the transverse strain are studied to consider the effect of different levels of stress triaxiality and the effect of these states on the shear zone development and emerging strain and stress concentrations. Comparing a case of embedded infinitely stiff fibers to a case with glass fiber reinforcement shows little difference thus illustrating that the glass fibers act approximately as infinitely stiff. Fiber spacing and fiber width are shown to influence the shear zones and the stress fields that develop as the highly deformed region approaches the limit resulting from network stiffening in the polymer. A simple analysis assuming periodicity is included in order to study the mechanical behaviour of the polymer matrix between fiber ends with long overlap.     

Experiments and modeling of iron-particle-filled magnetorheological elastomers

Magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) are ferromagnetic particle impregnated rubbers whose mechanical properties are altered by the application of external magnetic fields. Due to their coupled magnetoelastic response, MREs are finding an increasing number of engineering applications. In this work, we present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the macroscopic response of a particular MRE consisting of a rubber matrix phase with spherical carbonyl iron particles. The MRE specimens used in this work are cured in the presence of strong magnetic fields leading to the formation of particle chain structures and thus to an overall transversely isotropic composite. The MRE samples are tested experimentally under uniaxial stresses as well as under simple shear in the absence or in the presence of magnetic fields and for different initial orientations of their particle chains with respect to the mechanical and magnetic loading direction.Using the theoretical framework for finitely strained MREs introduced by Kankanala and Triantafyllidis (2004), we propose a transversely isotropic energy density function that is able to reproduce the experimentally measured magnetization, magnetostriction and simple shear curves under different prestresses, initial particle chain orientations and magnetic fields. Microscopic mechanisms are also proposed to explain (i) the counterintuitive effect of dilation under zero or compressive applied mechanical loads for the magnetostriction experiments and (ii) the importance of a finite strain constitutive formulation even at small magnetostrictive strains. The model gives an excellent agreement with experiments for relatively moderate magnetic fields but has also been satisfactorily extended to include magnetic fields near saturation.     

填充橡胶温度依赖的非弹性力学行为实验研究

填充橡胶具有复杂的非弹性力学行为,主要包括应变率依赖的粘弹性效应和变形历史依赖的Mullins效应.当前大多数对填充橡胶的实验研究集中于室温条件,针对以上问题,本论文通过单轴压缩实验系统地研究了温度对氟橡胶粘弹性和Mullins效应这两种非弹性行为的影响.首先采用多次循环加载获得了完全消除了Mullins效应的预处理试样.通过对原试样和预处理试样的单轴加卸载实验应力响应进行对比,发现Mullins效应不受变形温度和应变率的影响.通过对消除Mullins效应橡胶材料应力松弛实验结果进行分析,发现粘弹性行为不仅与变形的温度、应变率相关,还受加载应变的影响,表现为较大的加载应变会抑制氟橡胶的应力松弛.     

Non-linear stresses in a rubber cylinder sheared by pressure at one end

Normal stresses are set up by shearing a rubber block or tube. They depend strongly on the end conditions, even for relatively long specimens [A.N. Gent, J.B. Suh, S.G. Kelly III, Mechanics of rubber shear springs, Int. J. Non-Linear Mech. 42 (2007) 241-249; J.B. Suh, A.N. Gent, S.G. Kelly III, Shear of rubber tube springs, Int. J. Non-Linear Mech. 42 (2007) 1116-1126]. We have now examined a solid rubber cylinder bonded within a rigid cylindrical tube and subjected to pressure at one end. In this case, the correct end conditions for a simple shear deformation are met, at least approximately. Theoretical analysis and finite element calculations show that inwardly directed second-order stresses are set up at the wall, in contrast to the outwardly directed stresses generated by shearing a block or tube. However, for the particular geometry considered, the stresses were rather small in comparison with the applied pressure. Conditions are described under which they would be significantly larger. Stresses in a non-linearly viscous fluid under steady shear flows are expected to be similar, depending strongly on the geometry, end shapes and stress conditions.     

一种考虑剪切作用的各向异性超弹性本构模型

基于纤维增强复合材料连续介质力学理论,提出了一种轮胎帘线/橡胶复合材料的各向异性超弹性本构模型. 应变能被分解为分别代表橡胶、帘线、帘线/橡胶之间的角剪切和正剪切应变能4个部分. 给出了模型参数的简单确定方法,通过拟合文献中的实验数据,得到了本构模型参数,并用该模型预测了其他变形条件下的力学行为,得到了和实验数据较一致的结果,验证了该模型的有效性,为整体轮胎的有限元分析打下了基础.     

炭黑填充橡胶材料的修正三链模型和Mullins模型

论文探讨了炭黑颗粒填充橡胶材料的本构模型.考虑到橡胶单个分子链与周围分子网络的约束作用和炭黑颗粒对橡胶的补强作用,提出了一种修正三链模型,用Edwards管模型描述分子链之间的相互作用和约束,采用应变放大因子来考虑炭黑含量的影响.并在修正三链模型的基础上,利用橡胶分子网络重构理论,提出了一种适合表征橡胶Mullins现象的本构模型.通过与实验数据比较分析,修正三链模型可较准确地表征未填充橡胶材料不同变形模式的力学性能和炭黑颗粒填充橡胶材料的单向拉伸力学行为,Mullins模型也可较好地描述橡胶材料的Mullins现象.     

Finite element computation of torsional plastic waves in a thin-walled tube

Summary  A finite element technique is presented for the analysis of one-dimensional torsional plastic waves in a thin-walled tube. Three different nonlinear consitutive relations deduced from elementary mechanical models are used to describe the shear stress–strain characteristics of the tube material at high rates of strain. The resulting incremental equations of torsional motion for the tube are solved by applying a direct numerical integration technique in conjunction with the constitutive relations. The finite element solutions for torsional plastic waves in a long copper tube subjected to an imposed angular velocity at one end are given, and a comparison with available experimental results to assess the accuracy of the constitutive relations considered is conducted. It is demonstrated that the strain-rate dependent solutions show a better agreement with the experimental results than the strain-rate independent solutions. The limitations of the constitutive equations are discussed, and some modifications are suggested. Received 9 February 1999; accepted for publication 28 March 2000     

The trousers test for tearing of soft biomaterials

The mechanical modeling of rubber-like materials within the framework of nonlinear elasticity theory is well established. The application of such modeling to soft biomaterials is currently the subject of intense investigation. For soft biomaterials it is well known that exponential strain energy density models are particularly useful as they reflect the typical J-shaped stress-stretch stiffening response that is observed experimentally. The most celebrated of these models for isotropic hyperelastic materials are those of Fung and Demiray which depends only on the first strain invariant and its generalization by Vito that depends on both strain invariants. In the limit as the strain-stiffening parameter tends to zero, one recovers the neo-Hookean and Mooney–Rivlin models that are linear functions of the invariants. Here we apply these models to the analysis of the fracture or tearing of soft biomaterials. Attention is focused on a particular fracture test namely the trousers test where two legs of a cut specimen are pulled horizontally apart out of the plane of the test piece. It is shown that, in general, the location of the cut in the specimen plays a key role in the fracture analysis, and that the effect of the cut position depends crucially on the constitutive model employed. This dependence is characterized explicitly for the strain-stiffening exponential constitutive models considered. In contrast to the situation for rubber, our findings show that the critical driving force and fracture toughness in tearing of some soft biomaterials in the trousers test are virtually independent of the cut position.