ABSTRACT
White reinforcement fillers such as precipitated silica particles are traditionally used in order to increase tear resistance and reduce internal heating of technical rubber components. This chapter considers two precipitated silicas which essentially differ in surface specific area. They have been incorporated into a natural rubber matrix. The chapter elaborates two reinforced rubber materials, allowing analysing the mechanical behaviour and fatigue lifetime of both materials. It first deals with materials description. Then the experimental procedure is presented, beginning with some former results on simple specimen geometries, followed by the introduction of the dog-bone geometry that allows to carry out cyclic tension/compression and torsion tests. The way how to conduct the tests is detailed. The constitutive relationships are discussed where finite element aspects are described. Finally, the exploitation of the experimental database and the interpretation of the fatigue lifetime are proposed.
