2023 – a Year of Magnitude and Direction

2023 marked year 15 for Endurica.  If I had to pick one word to describe the past year, that word would be “vector”.  Because magnitude and direction.  😊

We updated our core value statement this year.  The first one I ever wrote as part of Endurica’s original business plan listed 3 values: technical leadership, customer focus, and trustworthiness.  Those values served us well for many years and in many ways shaped who we have become.  But it was important this year to take stock again.  We’ve grown 8-fold since I wrote those down!  So our team spent many hours revisiting our shared values and deliberating over which will best define our culture and steer us right going forward.  In the end, we decided to keep the first 3, and we added 3 more:  embrace the grit, make an impact, and better every day.

We also completed an exercise to articulate what makes Endurica truly unique in the CAE / durability simulation space.  The 3 words we chose are… Accurate, Complete, and Scalable.

  • Accurate refers to the accurate material models that capture rubber’s many “special effects”, the accurate critical plane analysis method for analyzing multiaxial history, the accurate handling of nonlinear relationships between global input load channels and local crack experiences, and the extensive set of validation cases that have demonstrated our accuracy over the years. Nobody offers a more accurate solution for rubber durability.
  • Complete refers to our complete coverage of infinite life, safe life and damage tolerant approaches to testing and simulation. It refers to feature completeness that enables users to account for nearly any material behavior under nearly any service conditions.  Finally, it refers to the documentation, the materials database, and the examples we distribute with the software and with our webinar series.  Nobody offers a more complete solution for rubber durability.
  • Scalable refers to our capacity to apply our solutions efficiently in all circumstances. Scalability is the training we provide so that users can learn our tools quickly.  Scalability is access to powerful, ready-to-use workflows right when you need them.  Scalability is the modular approach we take to material testing and modeling so that simple problems can be solved cheaply and complex problems can be solved accurately in the same framework.  Scalability is our multi-threading that allows job execution time to be accelerated to complete impactful analysis on tough deadlines.  Nobody offers a more scalable solution for rubber durability.

2023 was not all navel-gazing and new marketing.  We also had magnitude and direction in other areas.

Top 10 Code Developments:

  1. New Endurica Architecture: After several years of development and a soft launch under the Katana project name, we finally completed our migration to the new architecture.  The new architecture provides a huge speed advantage for single thread and now for multithread execution. It uses a new input file format (.json). The json format makes it easier than ever for users to build customized and automated workflows via Python scripting.
  2. Sequence Effects: Sometimes the order of events matters to durability, and sometimes it doesn’t. We introduced Steps and Blocks to our input file, giving users complete control over the specification of multi-block, multi-step scheduling of load cases.  There is also a new output request that came out of this work: residual strength.
  3. EIE: 6 channels and support for RPC: Support for 6 channels of load input was one of our most highly requested new features.  Fast growing use of this feature led to further enhancements of the workflow (support for rpc file format, studies of map building techniques), and new recommendations on how to implement boundary conditions for specified rotation histories in explicit and implicit finite element models.
  4. Queuing: Design optimization studies need efficient management and execution of multiple jobs. Endurica’s software license manager now supports queueing for licenses. Queuing allows a submitted job to automatically wait to start until a license is available, instead of the prior behavior of exiting with a license error. Now you can submit many jobs without worrying about license availability.
  5. Haigh Diagram Improvements: We implemented an improved discretization of the Haigh diagram, and parallelized its evaluation. Now you get much nicer looking results in a fraction of the time. For details, check out our blog post on Haigh diagrams and also read about other improvements like axis limit setting and smoother contour plots.
  6. Viewer image copy: There is now a button! Its easier than ever to get your images into reports.
  7. Documentation Updates: We have been focusing on improving documentation this year. There are many new sections in the theory manual and user guide, as well as a getting started guide and more examples.  Stay tuned for many more examples coming in 2024!
  8. User Defined Planes: It is now possible to define your own set of planes for the critical plane search. One example where you might want to do this would be the situation where you would like to refine the critical plane search on a limited domain of the life sphere.
  9. New Database Materials: We added 7 new carbon black and silica filled EPDM compounds to the database. We are now up to 42 unique rubber compounds in the database.
  10. Uhyper Support: The new architecture now supports user-defined hyperelasticity. If you have a Uhyper subroutine for your finite element analysis, you can use it directly with Endurica.

 

Testing Hardware

We completed the acquisition and installation at ACE labs of a Coesfeld Instrumented Cut and Chip Analyser (ICCA).  The ICCA provides unmatched measurement and control of impact conditions, and provides a way to evaluate rubber compounds for their resistance to cutting and chipping.

 

Applications, Case Studies, Webinars

Never underestimate the students! We were blown away by the work of undergraduates at the University of Calgary with our tools and Ansys.  The students designed an airless tire, completing durability simulations using Endurica software within the scope of a senior design project. They were able to Get Durability Right on a short timeline and a student budget. Check out their multi-objective, high-performance design project here.

Analyzing what happens to tires as they take on the most celebrated testing track in the world might have been the funnest project Endurica’s engineers tackled in 2023. We presented the technical details at The Tire Society annual meeting and more in a followup webinar. An extensive Q&A session followed, and I loved the final question: “So, how long before we have a dashboard display of ‘miles to tire failure’ in our cars?”  Bring it.  We are ready!

Our Winning on Durability webinar series hit a nerve with the Metal Fatigue DOES NOT EQUAL Rubber Fatigue episodes on mean strain (the tendency of larger mean strains to significantly INCREASE the fatigue life of some rubbers!) and linear superposition (for converting applied load inputs to corresponding stress/strain responses). The great response has lead to our third installment on the differences between rubber and metal fatigue with an upcoming presentation on temperature effects.

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Latest Addition: the Coesfeld Instrumented Chip & Cut Analyser

When there is rolling or sliding contact of a rubber surface over a second hard surface of sufficient roughness, localized cutting and damage of the rubber surface sometimes becomes a problem.  It occurs in off-road tires operating on stony surfaces, for example, and it can severely limit the useful life of a tire.  In order to study this “cutting and chipping” failure mode, Endurica last month acquired a new testing instrument: the Coesfeld Instrumented Chip & Cut Analyser (or ICCA).  It has been set up at partner lab ACE Laboratories, commissioned, and it is now ready for running tests.

The ICCA test uses a solid rubber wheel specimen.  These are molded from uncured rubber compound supplied by the client.  Alternatively, the mold can be rented if the client prefers to produce their own specimens.  The ICCA test offers direct control and measurement of the following key parameters

  • Wheel revolution speed
  • Overall impact period, tP
  • Peak impact force, FD
  • Contact duration of impact, tD

Figure 1.  Contact force control signal (left).  Coesfeld ICCA impactor tool actuation (right).

It also records the following measurements

  • Normal force
  • Normal displacement
  • Friction force
  • Friction displacement (i.e. wheel rotation)
  • Abrasion depth

Figure 2.  Normal and friction impact forces and displacements during a single impact.

The Coesfeld ICCA instrument improves on J. R. Beatty’s 1979 “BF Goodrich Cut and Chip” (BFG) test in several ways.  Perhaps the chief improvement is that the force and duration of the impact are accurately controlled and measured.  The BFG test suffers from two major problems: 1) that the impact is passively applied by means of a weighted beam whose natural impact frequency is influenced by the stiffness of the rubber compound, and 2) that the impact forces and displacement are not measured and not easily relatable to applications.  By quantifying the impact conditions of the test, the Coesfeld ICCA offers the opportunity to match those of the actual application.

As the Americas distributor for Coesfeld testing instruments, Endurica is proud and excited to add the Coesfeld ICCA to our portfolio of testing services and testing instruments.  Reach out to us today if you have a need for testing services on the ICCA, or if you would like to bring the Coesfeld ICCA to your lab.

Figure 3.  Endurica President Will Mars and Vice President Tom Ebbott with the newly installed Coesfeld ICCA at partner ACE Laboratories.

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Tolerances in Fatigue Life Prediction with Endurica

I get this question a lot: how well can the Endurica software predict fatigue life?  Is it as good as a metal fatigue code, where a factor of 2x is often quoted as a target tolerance?

The answer is yes, fatigue life predictions can reach and beat this level of accuracy. But as always, knowledge and control of the problem at hand is key.  We must keep in mind that fatigue behavior varies on a logarithmic scale.  It depends on many variables.  It depends on how failure is defined in the simulation and in the test.  Small variations of an input may lead to large variations of the fatigue life.  So, to achieve the best tolerances, careful specification, measurement, and control are required of both simulation and test.

Analysis tolerances depend on whether the analysis workflow is “open loop” or “closed loop”.  In an open loop workflow, the analyst is typically in the position of having to accept without question the as-given material properties, geometry, boundary conditions and load history.  The analysis is completed and reported.  Decisions are made and life goes on.  In a closed loop workflow, there are additional steps.  These include a careful review of differences between the test and the simulation, as well as identification and correction of any erroneous assumptions (about material properties, geometry, boundary conditions, and load history).

Open loop workflows produce larger tolerances.  Every situation is different, but do not expect tolerances tighter than perhaps a factor of 3x-10x in life, when working in open loop mode.  There is just too much sensitivity, too many variables, and too little control in this mode.  The open loop mode does have a few advantages though.  It takes less work, less time, less cost.  And it is often useful for ranking alternatives (ie A vs. B comparisons).

For high accuracy, a closed loop workflow is required.  It is rarely the case that initial assumptions are sufficiently error-free to support tight tolerances on fatigue life prediction.  Therefore, careful measurement and validation of material property inputs, part dimensions, load-deflection behavior, pre-stresses, etc. should be made.  Where gaps are found between test and simulation, appropriate amendments to the test and/or to the simulation should be adopted.  This approach yields high confidence in the simulation results, and good accuracy in fatigue life predictions.  We have seen users hit life predictions to better than a factor of 1.1x with this approach!  Although this approach requires more effort, it results in more complete mastery of part design, and it yields a much stronger starting position for subsequent products.

While “right the first time” engineering is possible with either open or closed loop, the closed loop approach benefits from progressive refinement of the analysis inputs and it ultimately gives the highest success rate.

 

 

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Virtual vs. Physical in 2021 and Beyond

An insight to how Endurica stayed connected during Covid-19, by using Microsoft teams to meet virtually.These days everybody’s talking about whether to meet in person or online.  There are great tools available for online meetings, and these have helped us navigate Covid-19. Like everyone else, Endurica teammates regularly use online meeting technology.  But if there is one thing we learned over the last year, it is that sometimes physical presence really matters. Living and working in isolation is just not healthy in the long run.

The new normal during the pandemic had some benefits that were enabled by the virtual world. Time and energy that used to be consumed by travel were rechanneled into improving our software, testing services, and marketing materials. In our personal lives, we had more opportunities to spend quality time with our immediate families and found more time for fitness activities. We previously talked about our pandemic pivots to bring our training courses online and offer webinars to stay in touch with our existing and potential customers.

But virtual meetings can’t replace the full experience of being together in person.  The face-to-face engagement at a trade show, the serendipitous bumping into a client, the spontaneous discussion of ideas with fellow conference-goers with a shared interest, the rapport building that comes from shared experiences.  We fundamentally need physical connection. A hug, delivered via Zoom, will never feel the same.

The world of 2021 and beyond is hybrid: part virtual, part in-person.  The benefits of the virtual are too great to set aside, and the necessity of the physical is too compelling to neglect.  Both are critical to our future, at home and at work.

So, too, with Endurica’s simulation workflows. It was NEVER Simulation OR Build-and-Break. Even the best simulations are not enough to completely skip physical testing. The virtual approach saves significant time and money in product development and design refinement. It allows you to explore a huge space of compound options and of design features before investment in building and testing prototypes. Our simulations enable you to balance difficult trade-offs. Still, before you head into production, you must complete actual physical testing on your rubber part – the physical world is what counts in the end. It is simulation AND build-and-break that are both needed in concert to #GetDurabilityRight.

Just as a Zoom hug will never replace the real thing, software will never replace the role of physical testing.  But just as online meetings are creating new opportunities and efficiencies, Endurica’s tools position you for unprecedented success when it’s time to test.

It's a Hybrid World from Here | Endurica's tools position you for unprecedented success when it’s time to test.

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Proper tear testing of elastomers: Why you should tear up the Die C tear test

Endurica Fatigue Ninja tearing rubber

I spent an interesting and rewarding part of my career helping to lead an elastomer technical college in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. One of the rubber technology words that was challenging for the Saudis to say in English was ‘tear’. They initially pronounced it like the heteronym related to crying. It might be a stretch to say that tears will come to your eyes if you don’t get tear testing of elastomers right, but proper measurement of critical tearing energy (tear strength) is essential for effective materials development for durability.

The fatigue threshold (intrinsic strength; T0) is the lower limit of the fatigue crack growth curve shown in the figure below, and we recently reviewed this material parameter including the various measurement options.1 The upper limit is the tear strength, TC. If loads in your elastomer component are near or above TC, then it is not a fatigue problem anymore but rather a critical tearing issue with imminent product failure. It is therefore important to accurately characterize this durability performance characteristic of your materials.

General fatigue crack growth behavior of elastomers

Endurica uses the planar tension (pure shear) geometry for measuring TC in our Fatigue Property Mapping testing services due to the simple relationship between the strain energy density (W) and the energy release rate (tearing energy, T).2,3 The TC is equal to the W at tearing multiplied by the initial specimen height, h. You can see this geometry below along with other tear testing specimens employed in the rubber industry and specified in the ASTM standard.4

Comparison of the different durability tests one can conduct: the differences between Crack Nucleation Test and Tear and Crack Growth Tests.

We sometimes get questions from folks with technical backgrounds in metals or plastics about whether rubber tear properties will be different when tested in distinct testing modes (mode I, mode II, etc.). It turns out that the extensibility of rubber causes the deformation to be predominately tension in the tearing region, irrespective of how the crack is opened, such that TC values are similar for rubber evaluated in different testing modes.2,3 Therefore, trouser tear testing is an alternative to the planar tension testing, as long as any stretching of the legs is accounted for in the data analysis.3,5 With no stretching of the legs, TC is simply given by 2F/t where F is the measured force to propagate the tear and t is the thickness of the specimen. The factor of 2 is surprisingly omitted in the ASTM standard4 even though it is mentioned in the appendix. The image below shows how to convert the ASTM trouser tear strength to TC.

Trouser tear strength testing

A proper tear test includes an initial macroscopic cut/crack in the specimen. This is not the case for Die C tear described in the tear testing standard.4 Die C is thus not a tear test at all but rather is a crack nucleation experiment akin to normal tensile testing of rubber. Because the strange Die C geometry forces failure in a small region in the center of the specimen, it is actually less useful than tensile strength testing of a dumbbell sample which probes the entire gauge region. The Die C test can also have substantial experimental variability related to the sharpness of the die used to punch out the samples. Unfortunately, the Die C “tear” test is the most popular method in the rubber industry to (incorrectly) assess the tear strength of elastomers, and this reality was a key motivator for writing this post. We look forward to seeing the rubber industry shift away from the Die C test, and we hope that the information provided here will help in that path to #GetDurabilityRight. Click here to learn how intrinsic strength and tear strength can be measured quickly and accurately (0:42 video).

References

  1. Robertson, C.G.; Stoček, R.; Mars, W.V. The Fatigue Threshold of Rubber and its Characterization Using the Cutting Method. Advances in Polymer Science, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2020, pp. 1-27.
  2. Lake, G.J. Fatigue and Fracture of Elastomers. Rubber Chem. Technol. 1995, 68, 435-460.
  3. Rivlin, R.S.; Thomas, A.G. Rupture of rubber. I. Characteristic energy for tearing. J. Polym. Sci. 1953, 10, 291–318.
  4. Standard Test Method for Tear Strength of Conventional Vulcanized Rubber and Thermoplastic Elastomers. Designation: ASTM D 624-00, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, USA, 2020; pp. 1-9.
  5. Mars, W.V.; Fatemi, A. A literature survey on fatigue analysis approaches for rubber. Int. J. Fatigue 2002, 24, 949–961.
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Is It Validated?

Is it Validated?

“Is it validated?” – that’s often the first question we hear after introducing our durability simulation capabilities. And for good reason, given the weight that hangs on the hinge of product durability. Endurica takes verification and validation (V&V) very seriously. Let’s look at what that means.

First, it means that our tools are built on well-known, well-established foundations.  These foundations include 1) definition of material / crack behavior via fracture mechanics (Rivlin and Thomas, 1953), 2) integration of the crack growth rate law to predict fatigue life (Gent, Lindley and Thomas, 1964), 3) the fact that crack precursors occur naturally in all locations and all orientations in a rubber sample (Choi and Roland 1996, Huneau et al 2016), 4) hyperelastic stress-strain laws compatible with commercial FEA codes (see Muhr 2005 for an excellent review), and 5) rubber’s fatigue threshold (Lake and Thomas 1967).  The validation case thus begins with the cumulative authority of thousands of reports that have confirmed these classical results over nearly 70 years.

Critical plane analysis for rubber has now been around for 20+ years, and it has been validated in multiple ways (material level, component level, system level), across multiple experimental programs (industrial and academic), by multiple independent research groups working on multiple applications (see Google/scholar, for example).  It has been validated that: 1) it correctly predicts crack plane orientation under uniaxial, proportional and nonproportional loadings (Harbour et al 2008), 2) it correctly predicts fatigue life across different modes of deformation (Mars 2002), 3) it correctly accounts for the effects of crack closure (Mars 2002), 4) it correctly predicts the development of off-axis cracks for nonrelaxing cycles in strain-crystallizing materials (Ramachandran 2017), 5) it correctly predicts the effects of finite straining on crack orientation (Mars and Fatemi 2006).

The literature is full of old experiments that we have used as validation targets.  We have validated Endurica’s strain crystallization models by simulating experimental results published by Cadwell et al (1940) and by Fielding et al (1943).  We have validated the ability to predict deformation mode effects by simulating experimental results for simple and biaxial tension published by Roberts and Benzies (1977).  We have validated Endurica’s temperature dependence against measurements reported by Lake and Lindley (1964).  We have validated against multiaxial fatigue experiments reported by Saintier, Cailletaud and Piques (2006).

We’ve done our own validation experiments.  My PhD dissertation (University of Toledo, 2001) contains an extensive database of tension/torsion/compression fatigue tests against which our critical plane algorithms were validated.  Two additional PhD dissertations that I co-advised generated additional validations.  Dr. Malik Ait Bachir’s thesis (2010) validated mathematically that the scaling law we use for small cracks is valid across all multiaxial loading states.  Dr. Ryan Harbour’s thesis (2006) contains a database of multiaxial, variable amplitude fatigue experiments against which our rainflow and damage accumulation procedures were extensively validated.

Validation from partners.  We partner with several testing labs.  We have invested in testing protocols that produce clean, accurate data and we have run validation programs with our partners to verify the effectiveness of our testing protocols.  We’ve demonstrated significant improvements to test efficiency and reproducibility (Goosens and Mars 2018) and (Mars and Isasi 2019).  We’ve validated techniques for estimating precursor size and size distribution (Robertson et al 2020, Li et al 2015).

Validation from users.  Three (3) of the top 12 tire companies and six (6) of the top 10 global non-tire rubber companies now use our solutions.  Most of our users have run internal validation programs to show the effectiveness of our solutions for their applications.  Most of these studies are unpublished, but the fact that our user base has continued growing at ~20%/year for 12 years (as of this year) says something important both about the technical validation case and the business validation case.  Validation studies have been published with the US Army (Mars, Castanier, Ostberg 2017), GM (Barbash and Mars 2016), Tenneco (Goossens et al 2017) and Caterpillar (Ramachandran et al 2017).

Validation from external groups.  There are several academic groups that have independently applied and validated components of our approach.  There are too many to list completely, but a few recent examples include Zarrin-Ghalami et al (2020), Belkhira et al (2020) and Tobajas et al (2020).

Software verification, benchmarking and unit testing.  In addition to the experimental validations mentioned above, each time we build a new version of our software, we execute a series of automated tests.  These tests verify every line of code against expected function, and they ensure that as we add new features, we do not introduce unintended changes.  The benchmarks include tests that verify things like coordinate frame objectivity (rigid rotations under static load should do no damage and the same strain history written in two different coordinate systems should have the same life), and check known results pertaining to material models and cycle counting rules.  You can read more about our software quality processes here.

It is safe to say that no other solution for fatigue life prediction of rubber has been tested and validated against a larger number of applications than Endurica’s.

References

Aıt-Bachir, M. “Prediction of crack initiation in elastomers in the framework of Configurational Mechanics.” PhD diss., Ph. D. thesis, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Nantes (France), 2010.

Barbash, Kevin P., and William V. Mars. Critical plane analysis of rubber bushing durability under road loads. No. 2016-01-0393. SAE Technical Paper, 2016.

Belkhiria, Salma, Adel Hamdi, and Raouf Fathallah. “Cracking energy density for rubber materials: Computation and implementation in multiaxial fatigue design.” Polymer Engineering & Science (2020).

Cadwell, S. M., R. A. Merrill, C. M. Sloman, and F. L. Yost. “Dynamic fatigue life of rubber.” Rubber Chemistry and Technology 13, no. 2 (1940): 304-315.

Choi, I. S., and C. M. Roland. “Intrinsic defects and the failure properties of cis-1, 4-polyisoprenes.” Rubber chemistry and technology 69, no. 4 (1996): 591-599.

Fielding, J. H. “Flex life and crystallization of synthetic rubber.” Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 35, no. 12 (1943): 1259-1261.

Goossens, J.R., Mars, W., Smith, G., Heil, P., Braddock, S. and Pilarski, J., 2017. Durability Analysis of 3-Axis Input to Elastomeric Front Lower Control Arm Vertical Ride Bushing (No. 2017-01-1857). SAE Technical Paper. https://doi.org/10.4271/2017-01-1857

Goossens, Joshua R., and William V. Mars. “Finitely Scoped, High Reliability Fatigue Crack Growth Measurements.” Rubber Chemistry and Technology 91, no. 4 (2018): 644-650. https://doi.org/10.5254/rct.18.81532

Harbour, Ryan Joseph. Multiaxial deformation and fatigue of rubber under variable amplitude loading. Vol. 67, no. 12. 2006.

Harbour, Ryan J., Ali Fatemi, and Will V. Mars. “Fatigue crack orientation in NR and SBR under variable amplitude and multiaxial loading conditions.” Journal of materials science 43, no. 6 (2008): 1783-1794.

Huneau, Bertrand, Isaure Masquelier, Yann Marco, Vincent Le Saux, Simon Noizet, Clémentine Schiel, and Pierre Charrier. “Fatigue crack initiation in a carbon black–filled natural rubber.” Rubber Chemistry and Technology 89, no. 1 (2016): 126-141.

Lake, G. J., and P. B. Lindley. “Cut growth and fatigue of rubbers. II. Experiments on a noncrystallizing rubber.” Journal of Applied Polymer Science 8, no. 2 (1964): 707-721.

Li, Fanzhu, Jinpeng Liu, W. V. Mars, Tung W. Chan, Yonglai Lu, Haibo Yang, and Liqun Zhang. “Crack precursor size for natural rubber inferred from relaxing and non-relaxing fatigue experiments.” International Journal of Fatigue 80 (2015): 50-57.

Mars, William Vernon. Multiaxial fatigue of rubber. 2001.

Mars, Will V. “Cracking energy density as a predictor of fatigue life under multiaxial conditions.” Rubber chemistry and technology 75, no. 1 (2002): 1-17.

Mars, W. V., and A. Fatemi. “Analysis of fatigue life under complex loading: Revisiting Cadwell, Merrill, Sloman, and Yost.” Rubber chemistry and technology 79, no. 4 (2006): 589-601.

Mars, W. V., and A. Fatemi. “Nucleation and growth of small fatigue cracks in filled natural rubber under multiaxial loading.” Journal of materials science 41, no. 22 (2006): 7324-7332.

Mars, W. V. “Computed dependence of rubber’s fatigue behavior on strain crystallization.” Rubber Chemistry and Technology 82, no. 1 (2009): 51-61. https://doi.org/10.5254/1.3557006

Mars, William V., Matthew Castanier, David Ostberg, and William Bradford. “Digital Twin for Tank Track Elastomers: Predicting Self-Heating and Durability.” In Proceedings of the 2017 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS). 2017.pdf here

Mars, W. V., and M. Isasi. “Finitely scoped procedure for generating fully relaxing strain-life curves.” In Constitutive Models for Rubber XI: Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Constitutive Models for Rubber (ECCMR 2019), June 25-27, 2019, Nantes, France, p. 435. CRC Press, 2019.

Muhr, A. H. “Modeling the stress-strain behavior of rubber.” Rubber chemistry and technology 78, no. 3 (2005): 391-425.Lake and Thomas 1967

Ramachandran, Anantharaman, Ross P. Wietharn, Sunil I. Mathew, W. V. Mars, and M. A. Bauman. “Critical Plane Selection Under Nonrelaxing Simple Tension with Strain Crystallization.” In Fall 192nd Technical Meeting of the Rubber Division, pp. 10-12. 2017.

Rivlin, R. S., and A. G. Thomas. “Rupture of rubber. I. Characteristic energy for tearing.” Journal of polymer science 10, no. 3 (1953): 291-318.Gent, Lindley and Thomas, 1964

Roberts, B. J., and J. B. Benzies. “The relationship between uniaxial and equibiaxial fatigue in gum and carbon black filled vulcanizates.” Proceedings of rubbercon 77, no. 2 (1977): 1-13.

Robertson, Christopher G., Lewis B. Tunnicliffe, Lawrence Maciag, Mark A. Bauman, Kurt Miller, Charles R. Herd, and William V. Mars. “Characterizing Distributions of Tensile Strength and Crack Precursor Size to Evaluate Filler Dispersion Effects and Reliability of Rubber.” Polymers 12, no. 1 (2020): 203. Pdf here

Saintier, Nicolas, Georges Cailletaud, and Roland Piques. “Multiaxial fatigue life prediction for a natural rubber.” International Journal of Fatigue 28, no. 5-6 (2006): 530-539.

Tobajas, Rafael, Daniel Elduque, Elena Ibarz, Carlos Javierre, and Luis Gracia. “A New Multiparameter Model for Multiaxial Fatigue Life Prediction of Rubber Materials.” Polymers 12, no. 5 (2020): 1194.

Zarrin-Ghalami, Touhid, Sandip Datta, Robert Bodombo Keinti, and Ravish Chandrashekar. Elastomeric Component Fatigue Analysis: Rubber Fatigue Prediction and Correlation Comparing Crack Initiation and Crack Growth Methodologies. No. 2020-01-0193. SAE Technical Paper, 2020.

 

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Durability Insights from the ISA for Tire Tread Compound Development

My last blog post (Getting a Quick Read on Durability with the Intrinsic Strength Analyser) highlighted a one-hour test on the Intrinsic Strength Analyser (ISA) to screen elastomer materials for long-term fatigue performance, with applications in materials R&D and plant mixing quality control. To illustrate the use of this approach for rubber compound development, we recently had the opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Nihat Isitman from Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio and Dr. Radek Stoček from Polymer Research Laboratory in Zlín, Czech Republic.1 Dr. Isitman led this project and was scheduled to present our research at the Spring 2020 Technical Meeting of the ACS Rubber Division, but the meeting was cancelled due to COVID-19 precautions. Instead, the Rubber Division is offering the content online, and the meeting presentations are available here for a modest fee.

Our study considered model tread compounds based on the well-known green tire formulation, which is a compatible blend of solution styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and high-cis butadiene rubber (BR) that is reinforced with a silica-silane system for low rolling resistance (improved fuel economy) passenger tires. Additional production compounds used in actual tire treads were also tested, but the proprietary results for these materials were not included in the public presentation. The SBR/BR ratio, silica loading, and crosslink density were all varied in this investigation. For each rubber formulation, the ISA was used to measure the fatigue threshold (T0) and critical tearing energy (tear strength; Tc), which bracket the two ends of the fatigue crack growth curve as shown below.

 Intrinsic strength and tear strength

The established cutting method of Lake and Yeoh2,3 is used for assessing T0 on the ISA, and the one-hour test on this benchtop instrument is concluded with a tearing procedure to measure Tc. The ISA is manufactured by Coesfeld GmbH & Co. in Dortmund, Germany, and distributed in the Americas by Endurica LLC (see photo).

The Intrinsic Strength Analyser manufactured by Coesfeld GmbH & Co. in Dortmund, Germany, and distributed in the Americas by Endurica LLC

The slide image below summarizes the key findings of this research collaboration. Optimization of T0 and Tc is possible thanks to different sensitivities to the various compounding variables. It is important to measure both fatigue threshold and tear strength to quantify durability potential of rubber materials, and the ISA is an efficient and effective instrument for these measurements. To learn more about this testing equipment for the rubber lab, please visit our Instruments page and contact us at info@endurica.com with questions.

 Summary of key findings of this research collaboration

References

  1. N. Isitman, R. Stoček, and C. G. Robertson, “Influences of compounding attributes on intrinsic strength and tearing behavior of model tread rubber compounds”, paper scheduled to be presented at the 197th Technical Meeting of the Rubber Division, ACS, Independence, OH, April 28-30, 2020 (online presentation due to meeting cancellation).
  2. G. J. Lake and O. H. Yeoh, “Measurement of Rubber Cutting Resistance in the Absence of Friction”, International Journal of Fracture 14, 509 (1978).
  3. C. G. Robertson, R. Stoček, C. Kipscholl, and W. V. Mars, “Characterizing the Intrinsic Strength (Fatigue Threshold) of Natural Rubber/Butadiene Rubber Blends”, Tire Sci. Technol. 47, 292 (2019).
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Getting a Quick Read on Durability with the Intrinsic Strength Analyser

There is now a one-hour test on a benchtop instrument for the rubber lab to screen materials for long-term fatigue performance. Please continue reading to learn more about this commercialization of a classical elastomer characterization methodology.

Rubber products manufacturers and raw materials suppliers seeking improved materials for next-generation applications depend on lab tests to predict end-use performance. These predictive tests should balance accuracy, relevance, and testing time. The testing time component is particularly challenging when the performance characteristic of interest is fatigue lifetime. The image of traditional fatigue testers chattering along for days or weeks comes to mind for those of us with experience in industrial rubber labs. The time consideration is the reason why tensile stress-strain testing (stretching a material to high strains until failure) is the most common physical test for the fracture behavior of rubber, in clear contrast to the most prevalent application condition for rubber products which is cyclic loading (fatigue) at much lower strains.

Fatigue crack growth is a key element of elastomer behavior that must be determined in order to predict durability, as illustrated below. For example, fatigue crack growth (FCG) testing provides the FCG rate law that is essential for predicting when and where cracks will show up in rubber products using Endurica’s elastomer fatigue software for finite element analysis [https://endurica.com/integrated-durability-solutions-for-elastomers/]. Endurica has developed a finitely scoped, reduced variability measurement approach1 which is used in our Fatigue Property Mapping testing services and is available on the Coesfeld Tear and Fatigue Analyser (TFA). Our standard FCG measurement protocol takes 20 hours of continuous testing. This testing time is very efficient for characterizing best candidate materials in the development process, but a faster test is needed for narrowing down, for example, 20 initial materials to 5 best candidates or for use in a plant lab to monitor quality of rubber compounding processes.

Key Components of Elastomer Fatigue and Failure

The Intrinsic Strength Analyser (ISA) is a recent addition to the durability testing solutions for elastomers. The ISA was developed through a partnership between Coesfeld GmbH & Co. (Dortmund, Germany) and Endurica LLC (Findlay, OH, USA), and this benchtop instrument employs a testing protocol based on the long-established cutting method of Lake and Yeoh.3,4 Endurica’s president, Dr. Will Mars, discusses the importance of measuring intrinsic strength (fatigue threshold) in this video on our YouTube channel which also shows some footage of the ISA in operation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL92ppsJZfE

The fatigue crack growth curve of rubbery materials is bounded by the fatigue threshold, T0, on the low tearing energy (T) side and by the critical tearing energy (tear strength), Tc, at the high-T end. This is depicted in the generalized figure below. A streamlined one-hour procedure on the ISA can measure both T0 and Tc which can then be used to estimate the slope (F) of the intermediate FCG power law response that correlates well with the actual F from rigorous FCG testing using the TFA (see figure). More information about this quick ISA approach to characterizing rubber crack growth behavior for materials development and quality control can be found in the Annual Review 2019 issue of Tire Technology International (open access).2

ISA graph showing Crack Growth Rate compared to tearing energy

The fatigue crack growth slope

The fatigue crack growth slope, F, from the ISA should be considered an approximate value that is useful for comparing the relative FCG behavior of materials. However, the determination of T0 on the ISA is highly quantitative and the only realistic option for assessing this parameter, since the near-threshold crack growth testing on the TFA needed to define T0 would take about a month. The implementation areas for the ISA and TFA are compared in the following table. A very conservative approach to product development for elastomer durability is to create a combination of material behavior and component design that places the final operation of the rubber product below the fatigue threshold. If this is your company’s approach to engineering for durability, then the ISA is the testing instrument you need.

Durability Testing Solutions for the Rubber Lab

Crack precursor size is another key characteristic of elastomers that needs to be quantified in order to predict durability. In combination with a standard tensile stress-strain test, the critical tearing energy (Tc) from the ISA can also be used to assess crack precursor size, as we showed recently in an open access publication.5

Endurica is the exclusive Americas distributor of the Coesfeld ISA and TFA instruments. Endurica’s efficient and effective testing protocols are provided on these high-quality instruments for the rubber laboratory. To learn more about how to add these testing capabilities to your lab, please contact us at info@endurica.com.

References

  1. J. R. Goossens and W. V. Mars, “Finitely Scoped, High Reliability Fatigue Crack Growth Measurements”, Rubber Chem. Technol. 91, 644 (2018).
  2. C. G. Robertson, R. Stoček, R. Kipscholl, and W. V. Mars, “Characterizing Durability of Rubber for Tires”, Tire Technology International, Annual Review 2019, pp. 78-82.
  3. G. J. Lake and O. H. Yeoh, “Measurement of Rubber Cutting Resistance in the Absence of Friction”, International Journal of Fracture 14, 509 (1978).
  4. C. G. Robertson, R. Stoček, C. Kipscholl, and W. V. Mars, “Characterizing the Intrinsic Strength (Fatigue Threshold) of Natural Rubber/Butadiene Rubber Blends”, Tire Sci. Technol. 47, 292 (2019).
  5. C. G. Robertson, L. B. Tunnicliffe, L. Maciag, M. A. Bauman, K. Miller, C. R. Herd, and W. V. Mars, “Characterizing Distributions of Tensile Strength and Crack Precursor Size to Evaluate Filler Dispersion Effects and Reliability of Rubber”, Polymers 12, 203 (2020).
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Fatigue Property Mapping 2.0

Fatigue Property Mapping Logo

We have just launched a few updates to our Fatigue Property Mapping service offerings.  The changes were:

  1. Addition of the all new Reliability Module for those needing to compute probability of failure in addition to fatigue life. The module gives you Weibull parameters to describe the statistical distribution of crack precursor sizes in your material.
  2. Addition of a pressure-volume test as an optional add-on to the hyperelastic module. Use this add-on when your rubber is loaded under high confinement to the point where its compressibility must be treated more accurately.  If the hydrostatic pressure is more than 5% of the bulk modulus, then this option makes sense.
  3. Split of the original Thermal Module in two components: a Basic Thermal Module and an Advanced Thermal Add-on Module. The Basic Thermal Module provides a dynamic strain sweep to quantify dissipation (for use in computing temperature distribution via FEA) and also provides the temperature sensitivity coefficient on the crack growth rate law.  The advanced module provides thermal transport properties (conductivity, specific heat), thermal expansion coefficient (for computing thermal pre-stresses), and additional data points for the dissipation and crack growth rate laws.
  4. Split of the original Extended Life (Ageing) Module into two parts: a Basic Ageing Module and a Master Curve Module. The basic module includes characterization of unaged and aged samples for stiffness, critical fracture energy, and intrinsic strength.  The oven exposure time and temperature for the aged sample is specified by the client, or can be set by Endurica based upon a client-specified life target.  The Full Master Curve Module gives both the Arrhenius law activation energy and a master curve showing how stiffness, critical fracture energy and intrinsic strength depend on exposure time and temperature.

Most prices have remained the same, except for the Thermal and Ageing modules.  The Thermal and Ageing modules have now been significantly streamlined, so that we now offer service at a lower price.

The new price list and specifications can be found here.

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Solving the Durability Puzzle

Solve the Durability puzzle with EnduricaEver thought about what it takes to deliver the durability you expect from products you use? Durability reflects the combined sum of many decisions made all along the supply chain. What sources to use for raw materials? What dimensions and shape for product features? Are there OEM- or customer-imposed design constraints? What load cases occur in manufacturing, shipping, installation, and operation? Manufacturing processes? OEM-specified qualification and / or regulatory testing requirements? What is the warranty or brand promise? If these decisions are not made well, then durability (as well as cost and weight) will suffer.

The people making these decisions come from many backgrounds.  They are chemists, product engineers, testing engineers, structural analysts.  The big challenge is to organize things so that their contributions all add up to the desired end result: getting durability right, preferably on the first try.  It’s a big challenge because the domain expertise and tools in place today in many organizations were largely built before the science was ready and before the workflows were understood well enough to integrate across disciplines.  This situation can make it quite difficult to solve the durability puzzle.  The pieces don’t all fit together!

  • Oversimplified lab tests whose relationship to actual product use is doubtful
  • Fatigue testing instruments that produce noisy data, or execute with uncontrolled test duration
  • Raw materials suppliers struggling to relate chemistry and process improvements to actual impact on end products
  • Compounders making materials selection decisions based on insufficient / poor information
  • Product engineers missing opportunities to fully leverage material capacity
  • Outdated and inaccurate ‘rule of thumb’ engineering that doesn’t work on new cases
  • Incomplete simulation efforts that fail to forecast or diagnose key durability issues
  • Product qualification tests that under- or over-solicit damage or change failure modes
  • Part suppliers leaving OEMs with too little confidence that durability issues have been handled
  • OEMs and part suppliers struggling to account for actual end-use load cases

Endurica-powered workflows overcome these barriers.  Our training, testing services, testing instruments, and CAE software solutions integrate across disciplines.  Our motto is “Get Durability Right”.

Our classes are geared specifically for your compounders, test engineers, product engineers and analysts.  Your compounder doesn’t need to be a mechanical engineer, but she does need to negotiate the demands on the material.  Your product engineer and your analyst don’t need a PhD in chemistry, but they do need to push for performance that will win for the customer.  Your test engineer needs reliable, productive measurement strategies that get the key information that will power up your materials and product development efforts.  Our classes will pay for themselves many times over when your team confronts the next durability pitfall. 

Our testing services and testing instruments produce a complete picture of what limits durability in your application.  Rubber exhibits many ‘special effects’, and our tests are very useful for quantifying each effect, for building material models, and for solving and diagnosing durability issues.  We partner with leading labs around the world to bring you fast and reliable testing for durability simulation.  We partner with testing instrument maker Coesfeld to bring our protocols directly to your own lab with automated, user-friendly control, measurement and data reduction.  Analysts, designers and materials engineers all need clean, abundant, high-relevance measurements. 

Our software (Endurica CL, Endurica DT, Endurica EIE and fe-safe/Rubber) provides the most complete set of durability analysis capabilities in the world.  Total life, incremental damage, residual life, critical plane analysis, rainflow counting, nonlinear loads mapping, road load signal analysis, stiffness loss co-simulation, self-heating – its all here: documented, supported, validated, with examples and a large user-base.  We support the Abaqus, Ansys and MSC/Marc Finite Element solvers.  Use our software to see how different materials, different geometry, different load / use cases impact durability.  If your materials, product, analysis or testing people can ask the question, chances are that our tools will simulate it and give you new insights. 

Durability doesn’t have to be a difficult puzzle.  It costs way too much when people from different disciplines don’t “speak the same language” and try to go forward with conflicting ideas and tools.  Solve the puzzle by using pieces that fit together.  Get your team speaking Endurican!

Keywords: Compounding, Design, Testing, Analysis, Training

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