Characterization method of mechanical properties of rubber materials based on in-situ stereo finite-element-model updating

The mechanical properties of rubber materials changes with the service time and the material parameters have a corresponding relationship with the aging time. In this paper, an in-situ non-destructive characterization technique of structural material parameters evaluation was developed, and the mechanical parameters for the silicone rubber during accelerated aging were measured by the developed method. This work combined the local indentation method to develop an in-situ stereo Finite element model updating method based on optical full-field deformation measurement, which realized constitutive parameters inversion of rubber. By comparing the inversion results with the test results, the validity and accuracy of the developed method were proved. Then, this method was applied to determine changes in the mechanical parameters during rubber aging. The proposed method is potential to predict the remaining lifetime of rubber material by using the parameter-aging time curve.