Fatigue Crack Growth in Rubber

Fatigue properties of rubber can be quantified from strain-life tests and from crack growth tests. Special multi-station test equipment and software has been developed at MERL to enable multiple samples to be tested simultaneously.

Strain-life tests are carried out on standard dumbbell test pieces.

For fatigue crack growth testing of rubber, special procedures have been developed for pure shear and simple extension type tests.

Data from strain-life and fatigue crack growth tests are used to define damage models based on tearing energy. These are used with finite element analysis (FEA) to predict component fatigue life.