Experimental and numerical simulation of elastomeric outsole bending

In this paper, we deal with the mechanical behaviour of elastomeric sole shoes subjected to bending. First, a methodology for material parameter identification is described for a visco-hyperelastic constitutive law with discontinuous damage, modelling the Mullins effect. This constitutive law was implemented in the finite element software CODE-ASTER (Abbas and Baranger 2010). Then, numerical results of the bending behaviour of a simple geometric shoe sole model are compared to experimental measurements obtained with a stereoscopic vision system. Finally, an industrial application of dynamic bending sole shoe is presented and experimental results and simulated load history are compared. © Society for Experimental Mechanics 2011.