Multiaxial fatigue life prediction of rubber-like materials using the continuum damage mechanics approach

The purpose of this study is to propose a fatigue criterion based on the continuum damage mechanics (CDM) theory to predict the fatigue life of rubber-like materials. The fatigue life of a styrene-butadiene rubber was investigated under tension and twist loadings. Using a generalized Ogden strain energy density function, a CDM model was derived in order to express the fatigue life as a function of an equivalent stress. Since the obtained model was unable to fit all the experimental results, a modified version, which shows a fair agreement with our data, is finally proposed.