Hyperelasticity Model for Finite Element Analysis of Natural and High Damping Rubbers in Compression and Shear

Rate-independent monotonic behavior of filled natural rubber and high damping rubber is investigated in compression and shear regimes. Monotonic responses obtained from tests conducted in both regimes demonstrate the prominent existence of the Fletcher–Gent effect, indicated by high stiffness at low strain levels. An improved hyperelasticity model for compression and shear regimes is proposed to represent the rate-independent instantaneous and equilibrium responses including the Fletcher–Gent effect. A parameter identification scheme involving simultaneous minimization of least-square residuals of uniaxial compression and simple shear data is delineated. The difficulties of identifying a unique set of hyperelasticity parameters that hold for both compression and shear deformation modes are thus overcome. The proposed hyperelasticity model has been implemented in a general purpose finite element program. Finite element simulations of experiments have shown the adequacy of the proposed hyperelasticity model, estimated parameters, and employed numerical procedures. Finally, numerical experiments were conducted to further explore the potential of the proposed model, and estimated parameters in analyzing rubber layers of a base isolation bearing subjected either to compression or to a combination of compression and shear.