The Rubber in Engineering Group combined their highly successful annual conference on the "modelling of elastomeric materials and products" with the opportunity to host the Rubber Foundation Lecture presented by the most recent Colwyn Medal winner – Dr James Busfield. James has been a long standing member of the RIEG, and his chosen topic for the foundation lecture on "how to model the behaviour of rubber materials and associated products" allied well with one of the most popular discussion subjects within Industry and Academia.

The Foundation Lecture was given during the afternoon it appears salient to review the content of that presentation, and its links with the other papers. Within the audience were many people who have worked in the Rubber "world" for several decades – James himself began his journey between Academia and Industry over 20 years ago- starting as a Post Graduate within a Teaching Company Scheme. (That specific scheme was to develop Finite Element modelling techniques at Peradin Ltd.) Many of those people have persevered with whatever tools were available to reach their goal of improving the knowledge of rubber behaviour. The Foundation lecture concentrated on how computer hardware and software has assisted development of "Modelling the behaviour of rubber". Flashback photographs of computers which were extremely expensive, difficult to operate, had poor data storage devices and took days/weeks to provide answers (correct or otherwise) provided an excellent reminder of the advancements that have been made in the last 2 decades. Similarly development over the same period of software which can cope with complex product shapes/behaviour together with improved material behaviour have all served well in enabling engineers and technologists to understand rubber behaviour to a much greater level.

The other speakers in the conference listed below discussed many different examples of the use of modelling in design and included presentations from Industry that illustrated the ways that modelling has enabled significantly improved understanding of product performance. Topics ranged from predicting premature in-service failure, methods to extend product life by changing the stress distribution, evaluating the nip properties of rolling rubber covered rollers to an injection moulding simulation of natural rubber engine anti-vibration mountings.

Technical Institute/University research papers included Constitutive modelling of fabric/cord reinforced polymers, characterisation of carbon black fillers in rubber, modelling to simulate the effects of environmental ageing, small crack energy release rates, and multi axial fatigue test prediction. During the break-out sessions a range of Posters were on display in the in the Library. This arena provided excellent opportunity for Industrialists and academics to exchange views and interests, with the goal of increasing their understanding of the behaviour of this complex material we commonly call "rubber".

Report written by Bill Mortel - Trelleborg AVS

Session 1 Chair - Claude Hepburn (Chairman of RIEG)

Modelling and durability assessment for rubber components in rail vehicles (2.7MB pdf) - Peter Hansen, John Harris and Salim Mirza (MERL, UK)

Lifetime prediction of filled elastomers in multiaxial stress states (4.4MB pdf) - Daniel Juhre, Rainer Klauke, Thomas Alshuth (DIK, Germany) and Jorn Ihlemann (TU Chemnitz, Germany)

Small crack energy release rate from configurational force balance in hyperelastic materials (1.2MB pdf) - Malik Aït-Bachir, Erwan Verron (Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France), William Mars(Cooper Tire and Rubber Company, USA) and Philippe Castaing (Centre Technique des Industries Mécaniques, France)

Session 2 Chair - Roly Whear (Jaguar)

Model for heterogeneous ageing of rubber products (3.0MB pdf) - Steinke, Jörg Spreckels, Martin Flamm (TU Hamburg-Harburg, Germany)

FEA and testing of an offset sandwich mount (1.8MB pdf) - Robert Luo, William Mortel, PW Cook and J Lake (Trelleborg IAVS, UK)

Session 3 Chair - Alan Muhr (TARRC)

Identification of local constitutive model from load-microindentation curve (2.9MB pdf) - V. Le Saux, Y. Marco, G. Blès, S. Calloch, R. Simon, S. Plessis (Université de Brest, France), P. Charrier (Trelleborg Modyn, France)

Modelling of dynamic systems with rubber contacts in technical applications (5.3MB pdf) - Patrick Moldenhauer, Matthias Kröger (TU Freiberg, Germany)

Analytical models of nip properties and hysteresis heating for rolling contact of rubber covered rollers  (246kB pdf) - Per-Erik Austrell (Lund University, Sweden) and Anders Olsson (Areva, Sweden)

Columbian Rubber Foundation Lecture

Modelling the behaviour of rubber (10MB pdf) - James Busfield (Queen Mary University of London, UK) 

Session 4 Chair - Sally Beken (Materials KTN)

3D characterization techniques and MonteCarlo simulations to generate models of filled rubber (2.7MB pdf) - A. Ocariz, T. Guraya, I. Lecubarri, J.M. Eguzkitza, F. Garrido, E. Gómez, (University of the Basque Country, Spain)

Injection Moulding Simulation of Engineering Rubber Components (6.2MB pdf) - G. Ramorino, S. Agnelli, A. Franceschini, T.Riccò (University of Brescia, Italy)

Experimental determination of mechanical properties of cord-rubber composites and numerical modelling of their behaviour (2.5MB pdf) - Bohdana Marvalova, Hoang Sy Tuan and Iva Petrikova (Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic)

Posters 

Recycling tires for energy absorbers in crash applications by Uriarte, I., Guraya, T., Albizuri, J., Jimbert P (University of the Basque country)

AIA and IA applied to microscopic images: a new methodology for the morphological characterization of nano-particles by López-de-Uralde, J.C, Guraya, T., Ocariz, A., Gómez, E., Zubillaga A.C., Santos, I. (University of the Basque Country & University of Deusto)

Micromechanical Models of Rubber / Organoclay nanocomposites by D. Lowe & A. Chapman (TARRC)

Microstructural characterisation of silica filled rubber using Focused Ion Beam SEM by L. Tunnicliffe & J.J.C. Busfield (Queen Mary, University of London)

Modelling rapid tear in Rubber by K. Sakulkaew, A.G. Thomas & J.J.C. Busfield (Queen Mary, University of London)

Measuring Fatigue Peel behaviour at rubber interfaces by T. Baumard, A.G. Thomas & J.J.C. Busfield (Queen Mary, University of London)

Viscoelastic deformation of carbon-black filled EPDM by D. De Focatiis (University of Nottingham)

FEA of the stress and time dependent behaviour of elastomers by H. Burke (University of Portsmouth)

Viscoplastic model for fitting dynamic properties of filled rubber by A.H. Muhr (TARRC)