Rubber/Carbon Nanotube Nanocomposite with Hyperelastic Matrix

Abstract

An elastomer is a polymer with the property of viscoelasticity, generally having notably low Young's modulus and high yield strain compared with other materials. Elastomers, in particular rubbers, are used in a wide variety of products ranging from rubber hoses, isolation bearings, and shock absorbers to tires. Rubber has good properties and is thermal and electrical resistant. We used carbon nanotube in rubber and modeled this composite with ABAQUS software. Because of hyperelastic behavior of rubber we had to use a strain energy function for nanocomposites modeling. A sample of rubber was tested and gained uniaxial, biaxial and planar test data and then the data used to get a good strain energy function. Mooney-Rivlin form, Neo-Hookean form, Ogden form, Polynomial form, reduced polynomial form, Van der Waals form etc, are some methods to get strain function energy. Modulus of elasticity and Poisson ratio and some other mechanical properties gained for a representative volume element (RVE) of composite in this work. We also considered rubber as an elastic material and gained mechanical properties of composite and then compared result for elastic and hyperelastic rubber matrix together.