Mechanical behaviour of composite materials including waste rubber chips: experimental and numerical investigations

ABSTRACTConverting scrap tires to a useful form is becoming an acceptable technique for a broad range of applications. This study focuses on the mechanical characterisation of composites containing a high amount of waste tire rubber which are reinforced with different content of aluminium powder. Therefore, a set of experimental test is performed to highlight the effect of metallic fillers reinforcement on the mechanical response of elaborated composites under static and quasi-static tests. Results of this study reveal the high improvement of material properties for the elastomeric matrix reinforced with metallic fillers. In fact, the ultimate strength of composite material has increased to 1.8 MPa for a high reinforcement content. In the second part, a modified visco-hyperelastic model is developed on the basis of experimental results which demonstrate the prominence of the strain-rate-dependent behaviour consideration. Coupled with the Prony’s series approximation, the Mooney Rivlin model is actually applied to refine the strain energy potential in order to examine the mechanical behaviour of the composite material under different loadings conditions. Finally, the good concurrence between the numerical and experimental results highlights the impressive efficacy of the proposed model in accurately predicting the mechanical characteristics of the materials under investigation.KEYWORDS: Particle-reinforcementrecyclingmechanical testingfinite element analysis AcknowledgementsThis project is carried out under the MOBIDOC scheme, funded by the EU through the EMORI program and managed by the ANPR.The authors are grateful to S.T.E the LAB’s members and to electromechanical system laboratory’s members for their support.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).