FE Model of Low Grade Rubber for Modeling Housing’s Low-Cost Rubber Base Isolators

Abstract

An accurate selection of strain energy function (SEF) plays a very important role for predicting the actual behavior of rubber material in the finite element analysis (FEA). The common method for selecting the SEF is by using the curve fitting procedure. However, the behavior of some typical rubbers, such as low grade rubbers (average hardness value of 47.2), cannot be predicted well by only using the curve fitting procedure. To accurately predict the actual behavior of such specifically nearly incompressible material, a series of FEA were carried out to simulate the actual behavior of four physical testing materials, namely the uniaxial, the planar shear, the equibiaxial, and the volumetric tests. This FEA is intended to examine the most suitable constitutive model in representing the rubber characteristics and behavior. From the comparisons, it can be concluded that the Ogden model provides a reasonably accurate prediction compared to the remaining investigated constitutive material models. Finally, the appropriate SEF, i.e. the Ogden model, was adopted for modeling a low-cost rubber base isolator (LCRBI) in the finite element analysis (FEA). The simple uniaxial compression test of the LCRBI is required for validating that the selected SEF works for predicting the actual behavior of LCRBI.

Validation of an elastomeric bearing characterized with finite element hyperelastic models

“…ABAQUS CAE 2017 software was used in the modeling process (Abaqus-Docs, 2017). (Sugihardjo et al, 2018) tested a similar material for all four required tests to define a hyperelastic material. Therefore, test results of the study (Sugihardjo et al, 2018) were used as an input to evaluate ABAQUS hyperelastic material.…”

Determining the Compression-Equivalent Deformation of SBR-Based Rubber Material Measured in Tensile Mode Using the Finite Element Method

“…The accuracy of the simulation depends on the selection of the material model. However, all material models have limitations that must be taken into account and only provide meaningful results within their range of validity [24][25][26].…”

Mechanical properties of Indonesian hyperelastic low-grade rubber for low-cost base isolator

“…Elastomeric base isolation used for damping earthquake loads consist of perforated steel sheet or fiber glass and vulcanized rubber under high temperatures -to form composite rubber bearings. However, its application for public low-cost housing has not been developed and implemented yet though several studies and researches have been begun [5,6]. Rubber has hyperelastic non-linear stress-strain characteristic, so it is suitable to be used as an earthquake damper base isolator [7,8].…”