Thermal Measurements on Elastomeric Materials: From the Characterization of the Dissipation Gradients to the Prediction of the Fatigue Properties

The design of elastomeric parts against fatigue remains a difficult task because of their complex microstructure that mixes a highly non linear smooth matrix with a complex network of hard fillers. This furthermore involves a strong coupling to the manufacturing effects, from compounding to mixing, injection and curing. The influent parameters are therefore very numerous, and their optimization requires speeding up the fatigue characterization. In the present study, the goal is to propose a fast characterization of the fatigue properties based on thermal measurements and applying an energetic criterion. First, experimental protocols are developed to obtain dissipation mappings using very thin samples (0.2 mm of thickness) with geometric heterogeneities. Then, these protocols are applied on hourglass-shaped fatigue samples, and the data used to predict the fatigue lifetime throughout an energy based criterion.