Effect of Interface in Three-phase Cord-Rubber Composites

Cord-rubber composites widely used in tires show very complicated mechanical behavior such as nonlinearity and large deformation. Three-phase( cord, rubber and the interface) modeling has been used to analyze the stress distribution in the cord-rubber composites more accurately. In this study, finite element methods were performed using two-dimensional generalized plane strain element and plane strain element to investigate the stress distribution and effective modulus of cord-rubber composites. Neo Hookean model was used for rubber property and several interface properties were assumed for various loading directions. It was found that the interface properties affect the effective modulus and the distributions of shear stress.