Xiu Liu

Uniaxial and biaxial cyclic tensile tests and stress relaxation tests were performed on the ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) material to investigate its stress-softening effect. The experimental results reveal that the EPDM material presents a significant Mullins effect during the cyclic stretching processes. Furthermore, it is found that the deformation of the EPDM material does not return to zero simultaneously with the stress, due to the viscoelasticity of the EPDM material. Therefore, this study combines pseudo-elasticity theory and viscoelastic theory to propose a visco-hyperelastic constitutive model. The proposed model is used to fit and analyze the uniaxial and biaxial cyclic test results of EPDM and a comparison is conducted with the corresponding hyper-elastic constitutive model. The results show that the proposed model is in good agreement with the experimental data and superior to the hyper-elastic constitutive model, especially when it comes to the stress-softening unloading process. This work is conducive to accurately characterizing the stress-softening behavior of rubber-like materials at large deformation and can provide some theoretical guidance for their widespread application in industry.

Temperature–frequency sweep tests were performed on silicone rubber to investigate the dynamic viscoelastic properties. The test results show that the viscoelasticity of silicone rubber presents significant temperature dependence and frequency dependence. The dynamic viscoelastic test curves at different temperatures can be shifted along the logarithmic frequency coordinate axis to construct smooth master curves at the reference temperature of 20 °C, covering a frequency range of 10 decades, which indicates thermorheological simplicity on a macro level and frequency temperature equivalence of the silicone rubber material in the experimental temperature range. The van Gurp–Palmen plot and Cole–Cole plot for the test data at various temperatures merge into a common curve, which further validates thermorheological simplicity. The temperature dependent shift factors of silicone rubber material were well characterized by the Williams–Landel–Ferry equation. Moreover, the fractional-order differential Kelvin (FDK) model, the fractional-order differential Zener (FDZ) model, and the improved fractional-order differential Zener (iFDZ) model were used to model the asymmetric loss factor master curve. The result shows that the iFDZ model is in good agreement with the test results, indicating that this model is suitable for describing the asymmetry of dynamic viscoelastic properties of silicone rubber.

It is not conservative to directly use the strength tested under the laboratory loading rates to evaluate the long-term creep strength of polymers. A suitable strain rate-dependent constitutive model is crucial for accurately predicting the long-term strength and mechanical behavior of polymer pressure pipes. In this study, the Kondner hyperbolic constitutive model is considered the base model in deriving the rate-dependent constitutive model for PE100 pipe material, and the yield stress and initial tangent modulus are the two rate-dependent parameters of the model. Uniaxial tension tests are carried out under five specified strain rates ranging from 10⁻⁵ s⁻¹ to 5 × 10⁻² s⁻¹ to obtain these two parameters. It is demonstrated that the strain rate dependence of the yield stress and the initial tangent modulus can be described by either a power or a logarithm law. The predictions from the two models are in good agreement with the experiments. In contrast, the power-law rate-dependent Kondner model is more suitable for describing the rate-dependent tensile behavior of PE100 pipe material than the logarithm-law rate-dependent Kondner model, especially for the cases of very low strain rates which relate to the polymer pressure pipe applications.

The mechanical behavior of asphalt mixture under high stresses presents nonlinear viscoelasticity and permanent deformation. In this paper, a nonlinear fractional viscoelastic plastic (NFVEP) creep model for asphalt mixture is proposed based on the Nishihara model, with a Koeller spring-pot replacing the Newton dashpot. The NFVEP model considers the instantaneous elasticity, viscoelasticity with damage and time-hardening viscoplasticity with damage concurrently, and the viscoelastic response is modeled by fractional derivative viscoelasticity. To verify the model, uniaxial compressive creep tests under various stresses ranging from 0.4 MPa to 0.8 MPa were carried out at room temperature. The NFVEP model predictions are in good agreement with the experiments. The comparison with the modified Nishihara model and the Burgers model reveals the advantages of the NFVEP model. The results show that the NFVEP model, with the same set of parameters, can not only describe the primary and steady-state creep stages of asphalt mixture under low stress levels but also the whole creep process, including the tertiary creep stage, of asphalt mixture under high stress levels.