International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

Generally, the most frequently used structural materials are metals which have high strength and stiffness. However, there are many cases, when other important properties come to the fore as well as high deformation by elastic behavior, high viscosity namely good damping effect. Vehicle components made of rubber usually exhibit large deformations. One of the most important properties of rubber is the ability to withstand large strains without permanent fractures. This feature makes it ideal for many engineering applications. On the other hand, the task becomes more complicated because of some features of rubber parts. The temperature of rubber increases significantly after deformations. Material properties of rubber change after these above mentioned temperature changes. Thus it is necessary to understand the mechanics underlying the failure process. This paper summarizes the applied equations and the basic physical laws which are responsible for the theoretical background of the strain and temperature changes and the analysis approaches that are available for predicting fatigue life in rubber, especially in vehicle components made of rubber.

Vehicle components made of rubber usually exhibit large deformations. Cyclic finite deformations may induce increasing temperature in hyperelastic materials. This case – where changes in deformation and in temperature occur simultaneously – is called coupled thermomechanical problem. Both the mechanical and thermal processes have their own governing equations, that is why special techniques are needed for the computation. A special technique will be presented for solving coupled problems, this is operator split method. The goal of this paper is to show how to solve the coupled thermomechanical problem by the principle of virtual power and the principle of virtual temperature, and how to apply them together.