Homogenization-based constitutive models for porous elastomers and implications for macroscopic instabilities: II—Results

In Part I of this paper, we developed a homogenization-based constitutive model for the effective behavior of isotropic porous elastomers subjected to finite deformations. In this part, we make use of the proposed model to predict the overall response of porous elastomers with (compressible and incompressible) Gent matrix phases under a wide variety of loading conditions and initial values of porosity. The results indicate that the evolution of the underlying microstructure—which results from the finite changes in geometry that are induced by the applied loading—has a significant effect on the overall behavior of porous elastomers. Further, the model is in very good agreement with the exact and numerical results available from the literature for special loading conditions and generally improves on existing models for more general conditions. More specifically, we find that, in spite of the fact that Gent elastomers are strongly elliptic materials, the constitutive models for the porous elastomers are found to lose strong ellipticity at sufficiently large compressive deformations, corresponding to the possible onset of “macroscopic” (shear band-type) instabilities. This capability of the proposed model appears to be unique among theoretical models to date and is in agreement with numerical simulations and physical experience. The resulting elliptic and non-elliptic domains, which serve to define the macroscopic “failure surfaces” of these materials, are presented and discussed in both strain and stress space.