Onset of macroscopic instabilities in fiber-reinforced elastomers at finite strain

In this paper, we investigate theoretically the possible development of instabilities in fiber-reinforced elastomers (and other soft materials) when they are subjected to finite-strain loading conditions. We focus on the physically relevant class of “macroscopic” instabilities, i.e., instabilities with wavelengths that are much larger than the characteristic size of the underlying microstructure. To this end, we make use of recently developed homogenization estimates, together with a fundamental result of Geymonat, Müller and Triantafyllidis linking the development of these instabilities to the loss of strong ellipticity of the homogenized constitutive relations. For the important class of material systems with very stiff fibers and random microstructures, we derive a closed-form formula for the critical macroscopic deformation at which instabilities may develop under general loading conditions, and we show that this critical deformation is quite sensitive to the loading orientation relative to the fiber direction. The result is also confronted with classical estimates (including those of Rosen) for laminates, which have commonly been used as two-dimensional (2-D) approximations for actual fiber-reinforced composites. We find that while predictions based on laminate models are qualitatively correct for certain loadings, they can be significantly off for other more general 3-D loadings. Finally, we provide a parametric analysis of the effects of the matrix and fiber properties and of the fiber volume fraction on the onset of instabilities for various loading conditions.