Dynamic analysis of rubber to metal devices using an unconventional numerical modelling for elastomers

This contribution deals with a code of automatic calculus developed to simulate the dynamic behavior of rubber-to-metal devices and more general systems made up of non-linear viscoelastic materials which are at the same time sensitive to temperature, frequency and static pre-strain (or pre-load) such as elastomers. Those systems are modeled by concentrated parameters models applying which they are reduced to mechanical vibrating systems with a certain number of degrees of freedom; their dynamics is analyzed in the frequency domain introducing an innovative approach to define the constitutive equations. Data coming from experimentation on standard elastomeric test pieces constitute a cloud of non ordered points in a multidimensional domain; these are treated by a back-propagation neural network in real time to point out stiffness (complex) values to calibrate the mechanical properties of the concentrated parameters systems resulting from modelling.