A phenomenological aging-damage hyperelastic model based on configurational mechanics for short fiber-reinforced rubber composites

The damage and aging of short fiber-reinforced rubber composites (SFRCs) have a significant impact on the performance and stability of associated products. However, the presence of internal short fibers and the large deformation characteristics of rubber materials make it difficult to characterize the damage behavior. Therefore, it is imperative to investigate the material’s damage behavior, as well as the influence of aging on mechanical properties, and develop a precise constitutive model. This study extends configurational mechanics to hyperelastic materials and introduces the concept of equivalent configurational stress as a physically meaningful variable representing damage, thereby establishing a constitutive model that couples aging and damage. Uniaxial tensile tests were performed on samples in various aging states to analyze the damage behavior of SFRCs and validate the accuracy of the proposed constitutive model. Furthermore, this research highlights the prospective application of configuration mechanics in characterizing damage in composite materials.