Ludovic Odoni

Fatigue crack growth dynamics in filled natural rubber

Abstract We present fatigue experiments performed on filled natural rubber and study the correlations between crack growth dynamics and fracture morphologies imprinted by an irregular crack path. Slow crack growth dynamics is obtained by cyclic fatigue in a pure shear test. We will show that an unstable crack growth regime exists for high loads. We will also discuss the appearance of sawtooth striations which follow a scenario that significantly differs from previous results reported in the literature.

Fatigue Behavior in Filled Natural Rubber: Study of the Mechanical Damage Dynamics

Rupture dynamics in reinforced elastomers is a much more complex process than in pure elastomers due to the intrinsic heterogeneous mixture of a rubber matrix with filler particles at submicronic scale. In the case of natural rubber, an additional source of heterogeneity is the strain-crystallization effect. How rupture dynamics and crack path are affected by filler particles and strain-crystallization is still a matter of debate. Actually, understanding how rupture dynamics and crack path are correlated to each other is probably an important key in order to improve long time resistance of reinforced rubbers.