3-DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF INTERFACE CRACKS IN RUBBER MATERIALS

Three-dimensional and plane stress finite element analyses were carrie d out to investigate the stress fields and fracture parameters of inte rface cracks in rubber materials. The tearing energy computations for any arbitrarily shaped 3D crack front in dissimilar materials were obt ained using the virtual crack extension method. The finite element res ults obtained are validated against existing alternate solutions and e xperimental data for cracks in homogeneous as well as bimaterial cases . The effects of different rubber material models, tearing energy dist ributions, crack extension angles, and three-dimensional regions at th e crack tip for interface cracks are presented and discussed. It is sh own that nonlinear materials have larger three-dimensional effects nea r the interface crack front, and that this effect increases as the mat erial, mismatch increases.