A Micro-mechanical Approach to Model Thermo-Oxidative Aging in Elastomers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a micro-mechanical model that captures the effects of thermo-oxidative aging on elastomers' mechanical behavior, validated against experimental data and emphasizing simplicity and physical interpretability.

Contribution

A novel, simple micro-mechanical model for thermo-oxidative aging in elastomers that accurately predicts long-term mechanical responses with minimal experimental data.

Findings

Model accurately predicts aging effects on elastomer behavior.

Requires only ten physically meaningful parameters.

Validated against comprehensive experimental data.

Abstract

This paper presents a micro-mechanical approach to describe the effects of thermo-oxidation on the constitutive behavior of aged elastomers at the long-range timescales. In particular, this model focuses on the effects of thermo-oxidative aging on the quasi-static mechanical response of elastomer and their inelastic responses such as Mullins effect and permanent set over time. The model is validated with respect to a comprehensive set of experimental data designed by Johlitz et al. to capture thermo-oxidative effect on constitutive behavior of elastomers. Besides accuracy, the model is relatively simple and easy to fit. It requires ten material parameters, all with clear physical meaning, which can be derived from only one set of experiment.