| Abstract: | The principal criteria used to predict cavitation in rubber materials are reviewed, and experimental evidence is recalled for three different configurations: in the bulk, in the vicinity of a rigid particle, and in small rubber particles embedded in a rigid polymer matrix. Two major classes of cavitation criteria are defined, those based on an elastic instability (i.e., related to a stress state and finite strains) and those based on the energy balance (i.e., involving surface energies). The different criteria, in which various hyperelastic behavior laws are considered, are compared in numerical applications, and the tendencies are derived. The particular case of accounting for the surface tension of the rubber, a parameter common to the stress state and the energy balance, is treated in detail. It appears that the understanding of the genesis of a microcavity in a rubber material, when no pre‐existing flaw is assumed, still constitutes a difficulty for the analysis of mechanical damage in polymers containing a rubber phase. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 39: 2081–2096, 2001 |
