Plastics, Rubber and Composites

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Experimental study on mechanical properties

of aramid fibres reinforced natural rubber/SBR
composite for large deformation – quasi-static
mechanical properties

Jianhong Gao, Xiaoxiang Yang, LiHong Huang & Yaohong Suo

To cite this article: Jianhong Gao, Xiaoxiang Yang, LiHong Huang & Yaohong Suo (2018)
Experimental study on mechanical properties of aramid fibres reinforced natural rubber/SBR
composite for large deformation – quasi-static mechanical properties, Plastics, Rubber and
Composites, 47:9, 381-390, DOI: 10.1080/14658011.2018.1514480

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14658011.2018.1514480

Published online: 01 Sep 2018.

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PLASTICS, RUBBER AND COMPOSITES
2018, VOL. 47, NO. 9, 381–390
https://doi.org/10.1080/14658011.2018.1514480

Experimental study on mechanical properties of aramid fibres reinforced

natural rubber/SBR composite for large deformation – quasi-static mechanical
properties
Jianhong Gaoa,b, Xiaoxiang Yanga,b, LiHong Huanga and Yaohong Suoc
a
College of Chemical Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, People’s Republic of China; bQuanzhou Normal University, Quanzhou,
People’s Republic of China; cCollege of Mechanical Engineering & Automation, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Quasi-static mechanical properties of aramid fibres reinforced natural rubber/SBR composites Received 25 December 2017
are comprehensively investigated via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), uniaxial tensile Revised 14 August 2018
tests, multi-step stress relaxation, and the Mullins experiment. The strength, stiffness, Accepted 17 August 2018
viscoelasticity, and Mullins effect of composites are analysed, and the micro failure
KEYWORDS
mechanism is also explored. It is shown that the samples appear similar to a laminate plate Rubber; aramid; fibres;
with random short fibres in a plane. The results of the uniaxial tensile tests indicate that the experiment; mechanical
tensile strength and elongation at failure decrease, while the stiffness increases following the property; composites;
addition of a small amount of aramid fibres into the rubber matrix. The multi-step relaxation Mullins; relaxation
and Mullins experiments reveal that the aramid-short-fibres weaken the viscoelasticity of
rubber composites. Finally, the strain energy of the composite is divided into four parts, and
one part is considered with respect to its application to the study of interface destruction
between the matrix and fibre.

Introduction
A recent research topic that is rapidly gaining attention
involves reducing the weight and rolling resistance of a
tyre, thus improving the global environment and sav-
ing automobile fuel. Aramid pulp is widely used as a
reinforcement material in the rubber matrix used for
tyres [1,2]. During the process of rubber mixing at
high temperatures, a chemical reaction occurs between
aramid pulp and carbon black. This results in
decreased friction energy between fillers, and improve-
ments in the hysteresis characteristics [1,3]. Addition-
ally, it results in a higher modulus and improves the
characteristics of the cutting and stab resistance for
rubber composites [4,5]. Furthermore, the tyre weight
is reduced by adjusting the mass ratio of carbon
black to aramid short fibres.
Therefore, recent research attention focused on the
mechanical properties of aramid fibre-reinforced
rubber composites (AFRC). Pitchapa et al. [6] exam-
ined the effects of aramid fibre and carbon black con-
tent on the mechanical properties of natural rubber
and acrylonitrile rubber composites. Shirazi and Noor-
dermeer [7] discussed the main factors that influence
the mechanical properties of aramid-short-fibre-
reinforced rubber composite. Mehdi [8] investigated
the effect of aramid fibres on the static and dynamic
mechanical properties of tyres, such as rolling resist-
ance and traction force. Despite the aforementioned
investigations, there is a paucity of studies on proper-
ties including stress relaxation, viscoelasticity, and
Mullins damage of AFRC, and this is seemingly impor-
tant for rubber composites with short fibres.
With respect to composites reinforced by short
fibres, a few classical theories that describe mechanical
behaviour include Eshelby’s equivalent inclusion the-
ory [9], Mori–Tanaka modified theory [10], the self-
consistent method [11], and the Hashin–Shtrikman
bound method [12]. Additionally, several theoretical
and numerical studies focused on short fibre-
reinforced composites [13–15]. However, given the
limitation of the application with respect to small
deformations, it is not possible to apply most of the
aforementioned methods on rubber composites that
exhibit the characteristics of hyper elasticity and large
deformation directly. During large deformation, there
are still several internal structure mechanisms, such
as the interaction between fibres and matrix and
fibres and fibres, which should be explored. It is necess-
ary to develop an effective method to predict the failure
behaviour of AFRC.
In the study, four types of experiments are adopted:
scanning electron microscopy (SEM), uniaxial tensile
test, multi-step stress relaxation, and Mullins exper-
iment. The experimental study of quasi-static properties
aids in examining the effect of aramid fibres on the
mechanical properties of aramid pulp reinforced natural

CONTACT Xiaoxiang Yang yangxx@fzu.edu.cn College of Chemical Engineering, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350108, People’s Republic of China;
Quanzhou Normal University, Quanzhou 362000, People’s Republic of China
© 2018 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining Published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Institute
382 J. GAO ET AL.

rubber/SBR composites under large deformations. This
constitutes the framework of subsequent studies on
the micromechanical properties of the AFRC.
Experimental study
The samples used in the study were provided by a tyre
manufacturer. A small amount of aramid fibres
improved the overall performance of rubber products,
given that the aramid fibre exhibited mechanical proper-
ties corresponding to high strength and modulus as well
as the internal chemical reaction caused by aramid pulp.
To investigate the mechanical properties of aramid fibres
reinforced natural rubber/SBR composites, samples with
eight different recipes were prepared, as listed in Table 1.
The reference rubber compound (that corresponds
to F0 sample in Table 1) consists of natural rubber
(Thailand SriTrangAgro), styrene butadiene rubber
(Sinopec), carbon black N220 (Cabot), and other
compounding agents. With respect to the AFRC,
the mass of aramid pulp (Teijin) was valued from
0 to 7 phr, while the contents of rubber matrix, car-
bon black, and other compounding agents were the
same. Two stages of mixing (that were completed
in the internal mixer and opening mixer) were
employed, and both the parking times were longer
than 8 h. All the rubber compounds were vulcanised
in the plate vulcanising press machine under 143°C
for 45 min. The length of aramid fibre Lf was
1 mm, short fibre diameter Df was 12 μm, and the
tensile modulus Ef was 20 GPa. The constitutive par-
ameters of the rubber matrix were obtained via the
uniaxial tensile test.
Based on the China national standard GB/T2941, a
dumbbell-shaped sample of I-type is adopted, as shown
in Figure 1. A scanning electron microscope exper-
iment, uniaxial ‘tension to fracture’ test, multi-step
stress relaxation test, and Mullins cycle experiment
were performed. Table 2 shows the details of the
main experimental equipment.
Discussion
Scanning electron microscope
To investigate the internal structure of composites, the
damage mode of the samples, bonding state of the
interface between fibre and matrix, and orientation dis-
tribution of fibres (among others) are obtained. This is
achieved by scanning the fracture surface, transverse
section of the stretched sample (that is perpendicular
to the x-direction in Figure 1), longitudinal section
(that is perpendicular to the y-direction in Figure 1),
and the section perpendicular to the thickness direction.
The experimental results indicate the following: (1)
Mutual entanglement between fibres is scarce, as
shown in Figure 2(A). This is because the stiffness of ara-
mid-short-fibre is relatively higher, and the fibre length
is short. (2) As shown in Figure 2(B), almost all the inter-
faces between the fibre and matrix exhibit small voids
and low fibre breakage, which indicates that the failure
of the samples under tensile load mainly corresponds
to interface debonding and matrix tearing. (3) Given
the shear force of mechanical stirring in the mixing pro-
cess, a few fibrils of the aramid pulp are separated from
the main fibres, and it is easy to bond the fibrils with the
matrix due to their small diameter, thereby leading to
increases in the matrix stiffness. (4) To understand the
fibre orientation, the fibre distribution in the transverse
section (perpendicular to the x-direction), longitudinal
section (perpendicular to the y-direction), and section
perpendicular to the thickness direction are observed,
as shown in Figure 2(C–E), respectively. It is observed
that several fibres emerge from the face in Figure 2 (C,
Figure 1. Shape and size of the dumbbell-shaped sample.
Table 2. Equipment and their manufacturers employed in the
current study.
Manufacturers of
Experiment type Equipment equipment
Unidirectional tensile Microcomputer control MTS Industrial
test, Mullins and electron universal Systems
stress relaxation test testing machines (China)CO.,LTD
CMT4104
Scanning electron Scanning electron FEI America
microscope microscope Quanta 250
experiment

Table 1. Recipes of the AFRC (phr).

Ingredients (part per 100 rubber) F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7
Natural rubber 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80
Styrene butadiene rubber 1502 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
Aramid pulp 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Carbon black, N220 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
Other ingredients 18.4 18.4 18.4 18.4 18.4 18.4 18.4 18.4
Total 168.4 169.4 170.4 171.4 172.4 173.4 174.4 175.4
Mass fraction of Aramid pulp (%) 0 0.59 1.17 1.75 2.32 2.88 3.44 3.99
Vulcanisation characteristics: Curing conditions of rubber compound 143°C × 45 min.

D), although most fibres coming out from the face in
Figure 2(E) are absent. This indicates that the fibre is
not oriented along the thickness direction of samples.
Rather, it is randomly distributed in the x–y plane and
is thereby perpendicular to the thickness direction (see
Figure 1). Therefore, it is concluded that it is easy for
the fibre to be oriented along the flowing direction of
the rubber compound during the processing, because
the stiffness of aramid-short-fibre is relatively high.
The morphology allows the sample to be considered
as a laminate plate with randomly distributed short
fibre, as shown in Figure 3.
Uniaxial tensile test
In the uniaxial tensile tests, the loading rate is set as
1 mm min−1 for the quasi-static state of the tensile
sample. A force sensor rated at 500 N is used to ensure
test accuracy. To avoid slippage of samples while
clamping, an eccentric wheel fixture PA103A that
tightens when the sample thickness decreases during
straining is selected. In the experiment, the sample is
stretched until fracture, and the number of specimens
in a sample corresponds to three.
3 Stress–strain curve
To verify whether it is possible to apply the constitutive
model of rubber for large deformation to rubber com-
posites with randomly distributed short fibres, the
stress–strain curves of each sample are fitted by
PolyN2, OgdenN3, and Yeoh constitutive models.
The rubber matrix is treated as incompressible. As
shown in Figure 4, good agreements are obtained by
Figure 2. SEM micrographs of (A, B) fracture morphology, (C) transverse section, (D) longitudinal section, and (E) section perpen-
dicular to the thickness direction of the stretched sample.
PLASTICS, RUBBER AND COMPOSITES 383
comparing the experimental results and fitting results
of the constitutive models, and this indicates that the
large deformation constitutive model of rubber is still
applicable to the AFRC with the isotropic assumption,
because the fibre content is low. Specifically, both the
OgdenN3 and PolyN2 models [16] exhibit higher
fitting degrees for all the samples.
The Halpin–Tsai equation [13] predicts the elastic
modulus of short fibre reinforced composites. With
respect to the composites with randomly distributed
fibres in a plane, the empirical formula [17] of elastic
modulus derived from the Halpin–Tsai equation is as
follows:
3 5
E = EL + ET (1)
8 8
where EL denotes the longitudinal elastic modulus, and
ET denotes the transverse elastic modulus of the com-
posite. The empirical formula is widely used, and thus
it is continuously revised for several different materials.
In the study, the experimental stress–strain curve is
compared with the results from the empirical formula,
as shown in Figure 5. The specific steps are as follows:
the tangent modulus Etg of F0 samples at different
strain is calculated based on the test data, and they
are then substituted into the Halpin–Tsai empirical
Figure 3. Random distribution of the short fibres in the AFRC
sample.
384 J. GAO ET AL.
Figure 4. Comparison of the experimental stress–strain curves
for sample F1, F3, F5, and F7 with respect to their fitting curves
of the constitutive model.
formula to achieve the tangent modulus of AFRC at
different strains. Hence, the relationship between stress
and strain is obtained. The curves in Figure 5(A) corre-
spond to samples F1, F3, F5, and F7 samples. It is
observed that with the exception of sample F1, the
experimental results are significantly closer to that of
the empirical formula for small deformation that is
within the strain limit of approximately 0.20–0.25,
while they gradually deviate for the high fibre content
and large deformation.
Figure 5(B) shows the stress–strain curves of
samples F5, F6, and F7 at the initial deformation. It
is observed that increases in the sample stiffness
increase the fibre content at the beginning of loading.
This is because most of the loads are shared by the
fibres, wherein the stiffness significantly exceeds that
of the rubber matrix, and this leads to the high rigidity
of the composite materials at the beginning of loading.
Strength of composites
It is reported that given the fibre dilution effect within a
certain range of fibre content, the strength of rubber
composite reinforced by short fibres initially decreases,
and then increases with increasing fibre content irre-
spective of whether the fibre is continuous or short.
This is because decreases in the fibre content decrease
the fibre’s capacity to limit the overall deformation of
the sample, and thus the interface between fibre and
matrix is destroyed under small loads. Subsequently,
rubber matrix bears most of the load after the interface
destruction. The destruction of the interface is equival-
ent to a void in the matrix, which results in earlier
damage to the sample. Therefore, the tensile strength
is smaller than that in the sample without the fibre
[18]. However, the strength of fibre dominates if the
fibre content is relatively high. Additionally, with
increases in the fibre content, the strength distribution
is gradually uniform in each region of the sample.
Given both the aforementioned reasons, the tensile
Figure 5. Stress–strain curves of experimental results vs. the
results of the Halpin–Tsai equation for samples F1, F3, F5,
and F7.
strength of composite increases. Evidently, the overall
performance of a composite is closely related to the
interfacial adhesion between the fibre and matrix.
The effect of the short fibre content on tensile
strength σb of the samples is shown in Figure 6. It is
observed that σb decreases with increasing fibre con-
tent. This result is consistent with other studies [6].
With the exception of the error from the manufactur-
ing and test process, the main reason for the high dis-
persion degree of the experimental data corresponds to
the lower fibre content that leads to the non-uniform
distribution of the fibre in the composites, and the
composites fail to realise complete isotropy. Therefore,
the modulus of AFRC is potentially high in one direc-
tion, although relatively low in another direction if the
fibre content is low.
Figure 7 shows the effect of short fibre content on
the elongation at break δ. The elongation at break δ
decreases if the short fibre is added to the rubber
matrix, and tends to steady state when the fibre content
increases. With respect to the F0 sample, δ is approxi-
mately 510%. With respect to the F1 sample, δ corre-
sponds to 420%. However, δ is maintained at 380%
when more than 4 phr of fibre is added. The main
reason for the decrease in δ is that the fibre restricts
the deformation of the sample. A potential reason for
 PLASTICS, RUBBER AND COMPOSITES 385

Figure 6. Tensile strength vs. mass fraction of the fibre. Figure 9. Test for the stress relaxation and Mullins damage for
sample F2.

increasing fibre content at a fixed strain, and this indi-

cates the reinforced effect of fibre on the rubber matrix.
However, with respect to high strains (100% strain), an
upward trend is not evident, and this is because the
damage to a few interfaces between the fibre and matrix
reduces the reinforcement of the fibre at a high
deformation.

Stress relaxation test

Stress relaxation is an important characteristic of
rubber that belongs to the static viscoelastic behaviour
of materials. The rubber molecular chain is stretched
Figure 7. Elongation at break vs. mass fraction of the fibre.
along the loading direction under the external tensile
load. The thermal motion of the polymer segments
leads to molecular chain unwrapping and relative
slip, and thus the internal stress decreases. However,
given the friction between molecular chains, the change
in internal stress lags behind the change in the external
force, thereby leading to stress relaxation. To examine
the effect of fibre on stress relaxation, samples with
different mass fraction are investigated by multi-step
relaxation in conjunction with Mullins cycle tests, as
shown in Figure 9. The four curves in Figure 9 denote
the stress relaxation and Mullins cycle characteristics of
sample F2 in the case of the maximum strains corre-
sponding to 60, 128, 176, and 229%.

Viscoelasticity
Figure 8. Stress at different strain vs. mass fraction of the fibre. The classical viscoelastic model corresponds to the
Maxwell model that describes the stress variation in
the materials during the process of the stress relaxation.
the steady δ is that the increased fibre content leads to The relationship between stress and time is expressed
increases in the probability of interface failure. When as follows:
the interface is destroyed, the load is mainly under- q1 −t/p1
taken by the rubber matrix that weakens the ability s(t) = 1e (2)
p1
of the fibre to limit the sample deformation.
The four curves in Figure 8 show the effect of short where 1 denotes the step strain, and q1 and p1 denote
fibre content on the elongation stress at different viscoelastic material parameters. Figure 10 shows the
strains. It is observed that the stress increases with relationship between stress and time during the process
386 J. GAO ET AL.
Figure 10. Stress vs. time at the 52% strain for samples F0, F1,
and F7.
of the stress relaxation at a strain of 52% for samples
F0, F1, and F7. As shown in Figure 10, the stress
value tends to be stable when the relaxation continues,
which satisfies the exponential function as well as the
Maxwell model.
To investigate the effect of fibre on the stress relax-
ation properties of materials, the stress change is intro-
duced to evaluate the viscoelasticity of materials as
follows:
smin
ds =
smax
in which smin and smax denote the highest and lowest
points during the process of stress relaxation, respect-
ively, as shown in Figure 9. To investigate the viscoelas-
ticity of AFRC, the relationships between ds(t) and 1
are shown in Figure 11, where the scatter points denote
the experimental data, and solid and dashed lines
denote the fitting curve for the experimental data of
samples F1 and F7, respectively. It is observed that
ds(t) increases rapidly, then tends to a constant
value ds(t)′ when 1 increases. With respect to all the
samples, ds(t)′ is approximately in the range of 0.85–
0.88 and is extremely close. As shown in Figure 10,
the fibre content affects ds(t)′ . Thus, with increasing
fibre content, ds(t)′ decreases, indicating that the
fibre weakens the viscoelasticity of composites and
the stress relaxation. This is because the viscoelasticity
of a composite material is caused by the rubber matrix.
The load undertaken by the rubber matrix decreases
when the fibre content increases. Furthermore, in
Figure 11, the strain 1′ is approximately 35% when
ds(t)′ of all the samples approaches the steady state,
indicating that 1′ mainly depends on the property of
the rubber matrix, and not the fibre content. By
fitting the experimental data, the relationship between
ds(t) and 1 is described as the exponential function:
s(t) = AeB1 + CeD1
where A, B, C, and D denote the material parameters.
Figure 11. dσ vs. nominal strain for the stress relaxation of
each sample.
Stress drop
After the Mullins cycling, the internal structure of the
rubber is increasingly steady, and this leads to steady
material characteristics. The deformation history of a
sample significantly affects stress relaxation [19].
After the Mullins damage, the AFRC sample (when
reloaded) exhibits subtle stress relaxation until the
strain exceeds the experienced maximum value, the
stress–strain relationship returns to the primary load-
ing curve, and the stress relaxation recovers, as
(3) shown in Figure 9.
The stress drop at a given strain is defined as follows:
Ds = smax − smin (5)
in which the meaning of smax and smin are shown in
Figure 9. The stress drop of curves 1 and 2 in Figure 9
are shown in Figures 12 and 13, respectively. As
shown in Figure 12, Ds is proportional to the strain
and fibre content. Figure 13 shows the stress relaxation
characteristics of samples when reloading after Mullins
damage, indicating the relationship between Ds and
1/1′max , where 1 denotes the strain of curve 2 and 1′max
denotes the experienced maximum strain of curve
1. Given the Mullins damage, when 1/1′max is less than
0.8, the rubber chain arrangement and damages to the
rubber matrix, fibre, and interface between the fibre
and matrix are almost stable. Thus Ds is constant, as
shown in Figure 13. Given that the viscoelasticity is
mainly manifested by the rubber matrix, Ds of samples
with different fibre content only exhibit a few differ-
ences. When 1/1′max exceeds 0.8, the stress–strain
curve gradually returns to the primary loading curve
(Figure 9). Thus, the viscoelasticity recovers, because
the rubber molecular chain is rearranged, thereby result-
ing in new microscopic damage.
Mullins damage
(4)
The Mullins effect [20] corresponds to the static soft-
ening characteristic of the filled rubber material.
 PLASTICS, RUBBER AND COMPOSITES 387

Figure 14. Strain energy distribution of rubber.

Figure 12. Maximal strain 60%, Stress drop vs. strain.

Table 3. η and permanent set of samples with different fibre

content.
F0 F2 F4 F5 F7
η (ε = 0.1) 1.153 1.460 1.626 2.066 1.733
η (ε = 0.2) 1.086 1.272 1.406 1.795 1.600
η (ε = 0.3) 1.038 1.285 1.351 1.767 1.600
η (ε = 0.4) 1.083 1.255 1.326 1.715 1.605
η (ε = 0.5) 1.076 1.229 1.338 1.490 1.603
Permanent set 5.58 × 10−5 0.063 0.028 0.034 0.028

Stress softening and permanent set

Figure 13. Maximal strain 128%, Stress drop vs. ε/ε ,max.
Given Mullins damage, the unloading stress and
reloading stress are significantly lower than that of
primary loading at the same strain, as shown in
Figure 9. With respect to the rubber composites
reinforced by carbon black, the microscopic Mullins
damage generally includes molecular chain unwrap-
ping, short chain fracture, molecular chain slippage
from carbon black surface, and rupture of fillers clus-
ters. Macroscopically, we observe effects such as
stress softening, permanent set, energy loss, and Mul-
lins induced anisotropy. Given the complex micro-
structure in the rubber, it is still challenging to
explain the mechanism of Mullins damage and estab-
lish a mechanical model given all the Mullins effects,
and agreement is absent with respect to the origin
of the effect at the microscopic or mesoscopic scales
[20].
Most existing studies mainly focused on rubber
composites reinforced by carbon black or silicon
filler [21,22]. In this study, based on the Mullins
experimental results, we attempt to investigate the
effect of short fibre on the Mullins stress softening,
permanent set, energy loss of AFRC, and microstruc-
ture of composites to interpret the Mullins damage for
AFRC.
Generally, stress softening is expressed by variable η.
This variable denotes the ratio between the reloading
stress and loading stress at the same strain (h = s′ /s),
where s′ denotes the loading stress of the virgin
sample, and s denotes the reloading stress, as shown
in Figure 14. The permanent set denotes the residual
extension that remains after a material sample is
stretched and released [20]. In this study, the perma-
nent set refers to the residual strain of the sample after
unloaded. With respect to carbon black filled rubber
composites, permanent set increases with increasing
carbon black content [23]. With respect to the aramid
short fibre-reinforced rubber composites, based on
the experimental result, η and permanent set for
samples F0, F2, F4, F5, and F7 are listed in Table 3.
It is observed that for each strain, η of sample F0 is
lower than that of the other samples. Furthermore,
increases in fibre content increase η with the excep-
tion of sample F7. Given that the fibre content of
sample F7 corresponds to largest in the study, it is
not possible to ensure whether η increases if the
fibre content exceeds that of sample F7. However,
the data in Table 3 indicates that the fibre intensifies
the stress softening. With respect to the permanent
set, sample F0 is several orders of magnitude less
than that of the other samples. Regularity of the per-
manent set for samples with different fibre contents is
absent, owing to the low fibre content. Evidently, the
bonding state of the interface between the rubber
matrix and fibre is also a key factor.
388 J. GAO ET AL.
Figure 15. Comparison of the Mullins curve for F0, F2, F4, and F5 samples.
Energy loss
With respect to the carbon black filled rubber, when
the sample is subjected to uniaxial tensile loading and
unloading, the energy loss lies in the middle of the
loading and unloading curves. This is expressed as
Wdis = W1 + W2, where W1 denotes the energy dissipa-
tion during the internal reconfiguration such as frac-
ture, friction, unwrapping of rubber molecular chain,
and rupture of fillers clusters. Additionally, W2 is
attributed to the friction of the rubber molecular
chain motion and is considered as energy lag loss
caused by rubber viscoelasticity, as shown in Figure
14. However, with respect to the short fibre-reinforced
rubber composites, the energy loss of the Mullins effect
is related to the carbon black and rubber molecular
chains and to the fibre breakage and friction between
fibres and matrix on interfaces during debonding.
Figure 15 shows the Mullins cycle experiment in con-
junction with multi-step relaxation. It is observed that
when reloaded, the strain–stress curve of F0 simply
passes through the lowest point of the stress relaxation
process of the primary loading curve where the stress
attains a balance. Therefore, it is concluded that if the
maximal strain of F0 is less than 60%, then only chain
segment unwrapping or chain slippage exist in the
rubber matrix, although a large amount of molecular
chains fracture and filler clusters rupture that influence
the stiffness of the rubber are extremely rare. However,
with respect to the other three samples (F2, F4, and F5),
the reloading curve does not fall at the stress equili-
brium point. With increasing fibre content, the distance
between the reloading curve and the stress equilibrium
point also increases, and this implies that the stress soft-
ening intensifies. This is because the internal damage
with fibre is more complicated, and the fibre matrix
interface debonding denotes the main failure mode
that causes severe stress softening. Based on Figure 15,
the strain energy is divided into four parts. Thus, W =
Wela + Wdis = W’1 + W’2 + W’3 + W’4 as shown in Figure
16, where W’1 (the circular scatter point part) denotes
the energy loss caused by the rubber viscoelasticity,
W’2 (the shaded part) denotes the energy loss caused
by the friction between rubber chains and interface fric-
tion of fibre, and matrix W’3 (the triangular scattered
point part) is caused by the interaction between rubber
and fibre and mainly includes interfacial debonding and
fibre breakage. Specifically, it also includes matrix
damage caused by the effect of fibre on the matrix. Fur-
thermore, W’4 (Unfilled part under the curve) denotes
the elastic energy of the rubber molecular chain and
fibre while the molecular chain returns to the coiled
conformation from extensional conformation.
In the aforementioned four parts of strain energy,
W’3 directly reflects the material internal damage

Figure 16. Four parts of strain energy of short fibre-reinforced
rubber composites.
Figure 17. Effect of short fibre content on W’3.
caused by the fibre. The effect of fibre content on W’3 is
shown in Figure 17. The value of W’3 increases with
increasing fibre content, and thus it is interpreted
that increases in the fibre content increase the failure
probability of the interface.
Conclusion
In this study, SEM, tensile test, multi-step relaxation,
and Mullins experiments were performed to investigate
the quasi-static mechanical properties of AFRCs. The
strength, stiffness, viscoelasticity, and Mullins effect
of composites were investigated, and the micro-
damage mechanism was also explored. The following
conclusions were obtained:
(i) The SEM image indicated that intertwined fibres
seldom existed, given that the aramid fibre
exhibited relatively large stiffness. The aramid
fibre was easily orientated along the flowing
direction of the rubber compound as opposed
to the thickness direction during the moulding,
and thus the sample was equivalent to laminates
with random fibres in a plane. In terms of the
PLASTICS, RUBBER AND COMPOSITES 389
failure mode, the interface debonding between
the matrix and fibre (and matrix tearing) was
dominant, while fibre fracture was rarely
observed.
(ii) The large deformation constitutive model of
rubber material was still suitable for rubber
composites with low fibre content, and the
PolyN2 model exhibited a high fitting degree
to the composites. With respect to the case of
the small fibre content and small deformation
of the sample, the stress–strain curve from the
experiment was close to the empirical formula,
while the two gradually deviated with respect
to the large content and large deformation.
(iii) When compared with that of the sample without
the aramid fibre, the tensile strength and
elongation at the break of AFRC reduced,
while the stiffness increased similar to the stress
at a given strain.
(iv) The experimental results of stress relaxation
indicated that increases in the content of short
fibre decreased the load undertaken by the
rubber matrix, and this decreased the viscoelas-
ticity of the composites. This is because the vis-
coelasticity was caused by the rubber matrix as
opposed to the fibre.
(v) After the Mullins damage, the rubber chain
arrangement, matrix damage, and interface fail-
ure fibre were almost stable while the samples
were loaded within the maximum deformation
of history. Therefore, when the sample was
reloaded, the stress relaxation characteristic
was extremely weak until the stress–strain
relationship returned to the primary loading
curve, and the original viscoelasticity sub-
sequently recovered.
(vi) The existence of short fibre intensified the stress
softening characteristics and increased the per-
manent set of AFRC.
(vii) The strain energy of short fibre-reinforced
rubber composites was divided into four parts.
In a future study, W’3 is a part of the strain
energy that will be considered for application
in the examination of interface debonding.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China: [Grant Number 11372074]; the Natural
Science Foundation Projects of the Fujian Province of
China: [Grant Number 2018J01427]; Education and Scien-
tific Research Program of Educational Commission of Fujian
Province of China: [Grant Number JA170491]. Natural
390 J. GAO ET AL.
Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China [Grant
Number 2018J01663]; 2016 Open Projects of key Laboratory
for Strength and Vibration of Mechanical Structures [Grant
Number SV2016-KF-18].
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