Modelling of the thermo-mechanical material behaviour of rubber-like polymers ― Micromechanical motivation and numerical simulation

摘要

The material behaviour of rubber on micro level is usually described by means of statistical mechanics. In particular, the Neo-Hooke model has been derived in this fashion. We show that a similar concept can be applied in order to include also viscoelastic effects. This results in a continuum mechanical model of finite viscoelasticity which is based on the multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient. Due to the latter aspect, the implementation of the model into a finite element code is suitably carried out in a way analogous to finite elastoplasticity. For the integration of the material equations for instance, we use the exponential mapping algorithm which has been proven to be very efficient from the computational point of view. Test calculations show that the formulation is appropiate to model the physical behaviour in practical applications realistically. Also thermo-mechanical coupling effects are incorporated.