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We have decided to discontinue the publication of preprints on our preprint server as of 1 March 2024. The publication culture within mathematics has changed so much due to the rise of repositories such as ArXiV (www.arxiv.org) that we are encouraging all institute members to make their preprints available there. An institute's repository in its previous form is, therefore, unnecessary. The preprints published to date will remain available here, but we will not add any new preprints here.

MiS Preprint
31/2000

The Mullins effect in rubbers from the point of view of damage mechanics

Antonio DeSimone, Jean-Jacques Marigo and Luciano Teresi

Abstract

When a specimen of natural rubber is subjected to a load-unload-reload cycle, the stress accompanying a given stretch is always smaller during reloading than in the virgin loading path. This stress softening phenomenon is known as the Mullins effect.

From a phenomenological viewpoint, the Mullins effect implies a decrease of the elastic stiffness as the maximum strain (or stress) ever experienced by the material increases. This phenomenon is well described by damage mechanics. This paper shows that the Mullins effect falls within the framework of the "generalized standard material" based on the notion of a "normal dissipative mechanism", and that local and global convexity properties of the functions governing such mechanism lead to local and global uniqueness of the specimen response.

Received:
09.05.00
Published:
09.05.00

Related publications

inJournal
2001 Repository Open Access
Antonio DeSimone, Jean-Jacques Marigo and Luciano Teresi

A damage mechanics approach to stress softening and its application to rubber

In: European journal of mechanics / A, 20 (2001) 6, pp. 873-892