Numerical prediction of mechanical properties of rubber composites reinforced by aramid fiber under large deformation

Recently, rubber composites reinforced by short aramid fiber have been widely used in tires and have attracted considerable attention because of their excellent characteristics. In this study, uniaxial tests and scanning electron microscope experiments were performed to obtain the mechanical response and to study the microscopic structure of the composites, respectively. A finite element numerical model is proposed to predict the mechanical properties of rubber composites reinforced by short aramid fiber based on experimental observation. Using the random sequential adsorption algorithm, fibers were generated with embedded element technique; this makes finite element modeling more convenient and enables the analysis of two key issues: the large aspect ratio of the aramid fiber and large deformation of the rubber. The close agreement between the experimental results and numerical results verifies the reliability of the proposed finite element model for aramid-fiber-reinforced rubber.