A thermo-mechanical formulation describing the frictional behaviour of rubber

Abstract

In this paper a numerical model for the analysis of coupled thermo-mechanical frictional contact problems of rubber blocks on rough surfaces is presented. The formulations for the interface shear stresses and the heat fluxes are motivated by a theoretical examination of the process of rubber friction. In general, these quantities depend explicitly on contact pressure, the sliding velocity, and the surface temperature. Several parameters in the model allow for consideration of the influence of different rubber compounds, rubber block geometries and road surfaces. The experimental setup used for the identification of these parameters and the validation of the contact model are briefly explained. The obtained results demonstrate the experimentally observed sensitivity of the system to changes in contact pressure, sliding velocity, and rubber compound. The numerical model was implemented in the commercial finite element code ABAQUS. The simulation of a sliding rectangular rubber tread block demonstrates how the contact model performs. The comparison of numerical and experimental results shows good agreement.