On modeling fracture of soft polymers

Abstract

Soft polymers are ubiquitous materials in nature and as engineering materials with properties varying from rate-independent to rate-dependent. Current fracture toughness measures are non-unique for rate-dependent soft materials for varying loading profiles and specimen geometries. Works on modeling fracture in rate-dependent soft polymers are limited to specific pre-cracked geometries. There is no generally agreed-upon model for the fracture of soft polymers. We propose and show that a critical value of stress work can be used as a measure of fracture resistance for a certain class of soft polymers. We develop a damage model to predict fracture in soft polymers. In the model, the energetic part of the critical stress work is proposed as a damage initiation criterion that has the ability to capture failure surfaces. The damage growth is modeled through a generalized gradient-damage framework. The fracture model is validated for both elastomers and viscous soft polymers by comparing model predictions against experimental results for different materials (ethylene propylene diene monomer - EPDM, EPS25 vitrimer, styrene butadiene rubber - SBR, natural rubber - NR, and polyborosiloxane - PBS), a variety of specimen geometries, and loading conditions. The model can predict key physical phenomena such as brittle and ductile responses and different fracture profiles. The microstructural quantities, such as subchain dissociation energy during the fracture of polymers, can be predicted from the macroscopic model parameters.