ABSTRACT
This work focuses on the mechanical behavior of a new class of textile reinforced rubber composites, which are made up of a 3D-fabric core enclosed by two rubber layers. The manufacturing versatility of the 3D-textiles offers encouraging possibilities in their design for specific applications. However, mechanical testing of these sandwich structures considering different topologies of the reinforcement textile is expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, it is of interest to develop mechanical models that provide: (1) a better understanding of the interaction between the constituents, and (2) some insight on the role played by the different length scales in the complex micro-structure. To this end, a multi-scale modeling approach has been developed where a full-field finite element homogenization is conducted at each of the scales defining the microstructure. The mechanical response at each level is then fitted by an appropriate (linear or non-linear) elastic material model and used in the upper level. The multi-scale based modeling presented in this work sheds light on the complex mechanics of the textile-rubber micro-structure. Moreover, our study may support the development of these new 3D-fabric-rubber materials by enabling the optimization of the different constituents to obtain specific mechanical properties.
