A continuum model for progressive damage in tough multinetwork elastomers Shawn R. Lavoie†, Pierre Millereau§, Costantino Creton§, Rong Long‡, Tian Tang†*, †Department of Mechanical Engineering, 10-203 Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering, 9211-116 Street NW, Edmonton, AB, T6G 1H9, Canada § Laboratoire de Sciences et Ingénierie de la Matière Molle, CNRS, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 10 rue Vauquelin, 75005 Paris, France ‡ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA 80309. *Corresponding author E-mail:
[email protected], Phone: 780-492-5467, Fax: 780-492-2378 Keywords: Multinetwork elastomer, fracture toughness, progressive damage Abstract Recently a class of multinetwork elastomers (MNEs) was developed by swelling a filler polymer network with monomers that are subsequently polymerized to form matrix networks. Such MNEs were reported to possess remarkable stiffness and fracture toughness while maintaining the ability to sustain large deformation as found in simple elastomers. The enhancement in toughness is attained by prestretching the chains of the filler network through the introduction of one or more matrix network(s), thereby promoting energy dissipation through chain scission in the filler network. In this work, a model to capture the mechanical response of MNEs is developed, and validated with experimental data. Prestrech of the polymer chains is incorporated into the model by basing the strain energy density function on the combined effect 1 of swelling and subsequent deformation of the completed MNE. The filler network is modeled as a polydisperse network of breakable polymer chains with nonlinear chain elasticity, while the matrix networks are modeled using the generalized neo-Hookean model.