Comparison of discontinuous damage models of Mullins-type

Abstract

The Mullins effect is a characteristic property of filled rubber materials whose accurate and efficient modelling is still a challenging task. Innumerable constitutive models for elastomers are described in the literature. Therefore, this contribution gives a review on some widely used approaches, presents a classification, proves their thermodynamic consistency, and discusses reasonable modifications. To reduce the wide range of models, the choice is restricted to those which reproduce the idealised, discontinuous Mullins effect. Apart from the theoretical considerations, two compounds were produced and tested under cyclic uniaxial and equibiaxial tension as well as pure shear. Based on this experimental data, a benchmark that compares the fitting quality of the discussed models is compiled and favourable approaches are identified. The results are a sound basis for establishing novel or improving existing rubber models.