Experiment and modeling of uniaxial tension fatigue performances for filled natural rubbers

•We propose experiment and modeling of uniaxial fatigue for filled natural rubbers.•We study the relationship between tension fatigue and damage parameters.•All damage parameters discussed can correlate with tension fatigue life well.•The relation of tension fatigue and damage parameters is independent on specimens.

A tension fatigue model of filled natural rubbers is investigated to study the contributions of two key factors, namely, the damage parameter and the specimen geometry used in the fatigue experiment. The uniaxial tension fatigue experiments were carried out for three filled natural rubber specimens with different geometry: a dumbbell simple tension specimen (STS), a dumbbell cylindrical specimen (DCS), and a hollow cylindrical specimen (HCS). The commonly used damage parameters for fatigue life prediction are discussed. The fatigue life prediction models are formulated using the measured tension fatigue life of the STS together with different damage parameters. The effectiveness of the models is established in terms of a correlation coefficient characterizing the error between the measured and predicted fatigue lives. It is concluded that all the damage parameters considered in the study can effectively estimate the tension fatigue life with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.9. The fatigue life model formulated for the STS was also found to be appropriate for predicting the fatigue life of specimens with different geometry (DCS and HCS) suggesting that the relationship between the tension fatigue life and the damage parameters is independent of the specimen geometry. One may thus conduct tension fatigue tests with STS alone in order to model the tension fatigue life of rubbers with alternate geometry.