ABSTRACT
The fatigue life behaviour of elastomers has been studied extensively ((Lake & Lindley, 1965), (Cadwell, Merrill, Sloman, &Yost, 1940), (Schöpfel, Idelberger, Schütz, & Flade, 1996)). The same holds true for the fracture mechanics of elastomers (Selden, 1995). Rarely have experiments on fatigue life been carried out on the same elastomers that were used for the fracture mechanics, especially when they are not under non-relaxing condition. The reason is that they could show inconsistencies or even contradictions between calculations and experimental results, especially if different materials are compared (Abraham F., 2002). Another reason is that fatigue life testing is extremely time consuming and companies are not always willing to publish their research to protect their advantage in fatigue simulation knowledge.
