Planar Seal Simulation with Hyperelastic Experimental Data (Mooney-Rivlin Hyperelastic Model)

The seal which is used in the door of applications from automotive industries. The seal is a long strip of rubber and it will be modeled as a plane strain problem. A series of material tests has been conducted, including the uni-axial tensile test, the bi-axial tensile test and the shear test.

A series of trials of data fitting shows that, for these material testing data, the two-parameter "Mooney-Rivlin Hyperelastic Model" fits the data better than other models. It is decided to use Two-Parameter Mooney-Rivlin Model.

The unit system used in this tutorial is "U.S. Customary (in-lbm-lbf-s)".

  1. Step 1: Overview



    • The seal which is used in the door of applications from automotive industries. The seal is a long strip of rubber and it will be modeled as a plane strain problem. A series of material tests has been conducted, including the uni-axial tensile test, the bi-axial tensile test and the shear test.


    • A series of trials of data fitting shows that, for these material testing data, the two-parameter "Mooney-Rivlin Hyperelastic Model" fits the data better than other models. It is decided to use Two-Parameter Mooney-Rivlin Model.
  2. Step 2: Setup

    • Drag and Drop a Static Structural Analysis on ANSYS Workbench Main Menu:


  3. Step 3: Engineering Data (Material Model)

    • The most important section for this tutorial is creating and defining the material data.


    • Create a new material called as "Rubber":



    • Expand Hyperelastic Experimental Data and add Uni-axial Test Data, Bi-axial Test Data and Shear Test Data to created material model:



    • Uni-axial Test Data Parameters:




    • Bi-axial Test Data Parameters:




    • Shear Test Data Parameters:




    • Expand Hyperelastic and add "Mooney-Rivlin Two-Parameter Model" Test Data to created material model:



    • Select "Curve-Fitting" and select "Solve Curve Fit":



    • Right-click "Curve Fitting" again and select "Copy Calculated Values to Property":



    • Dots represent the test datas while lines represent the fitted curves by "Two-Parameter Mooney-Rivlin Model".


    • The default material "Structural Steel" have been used as material for Upper and Lower Steel Plates.
  4. Step 4: Geometry (DesignModeler)

    • The dimensions of Rubber, Upper and Lower Steel Plates which has been created on DesignModeler could be seen below:



    • The half-model has been used for this tutorial:


  5. Step 5: Meshing Operations (Default Geometry)

    • The default mesh operations with the element size of "7.874e-3 in." have been implemented:



  6. Step 6: Contacts (Frictionless Contact)

    • "Frictionless Contact" has been used for both "Upper Steel Plate - Rubber" and "Rubber - Lower Steel Plate" interactions as seen below:





  7. Step 7: Boundary Conditions

    • The Boundary Conditions have been implemented as below figure:



    • "Frictionless Support" has been used for simulating the symmetry conditions due to the half-model usage:




    • "Fixed Support" has been used in order to simulate the Fixed End:




    • "Displacement" with 0.85in has been applied to Upper Steel Plate:



  8. Step 8: Analysis Settings

    • 1000 Substeps have been used for this tutorial:


  9. Step 9: Results

    • Maximum Principal Stress:



    • Minimum Principal Stress:



    • Shear Stress:



    • Maximum Principal Elastic Strain:



    • Minimum Principal Elastic Strain:



    • Shear Elastic Strain:



    • Force - Displacement Graph:


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