Open Access

ABSTRACT

Fracture behavior of vulcanize rubber on the variations of thickness to width ratios

Sutthinane Nilbuaklee¹, Chanyut Kolitawong¹, Banpot Horbanluekit^1,2

1 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Thailand
2 Current address: Michelin Research Asis (Thailand) Co., Ltd., 252 SPE Tower, 16^th Fl. (Unit 1601), Phaholyothin Rd., Samsaen Nai, Payathai, Bangkok 10400 Thailand.

The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences 2009, 13(1), 4-10. https://doi.org/10.3970/icces.2009.013.004

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to determine fracture effects of vulcanize elastomer at various thickness to width ratios under opening mode fracture mechanics. The J-integral values from finite element method are compared with those from experiment. In this research, fracture tests perform under Single Edge Notch Tensile (S.E.N.T) tests using the multiple-specimen method. Compare to the experimental data, the numerical results are acceptable at the deep crack length, i.e. high crack length to width ratio. The k values from the 3-D numerical calculation show that thin sheet is dominated by plane stress state, but thick sheet is dominated by plane strain condition. The results reveal that, in 2-D approximation, the plane strain assumption can be used at the thickness to width ratio (t/w) at 0.88 up.

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Keywords

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