In-plane mechanics of soft architectured fibre-reinforced silicone rubber membranes

Lucie Bailly (1) , Mamadou Toungara (2, 3) , Laurent Orgéas (2, 3) , Eric Bertrand (4) , Valérie Deplano (4) , Christian Geindreau (2, 3)

1 Biomécanique
2 3SR - Laboratoire sols, solides, structures - risques [Grenoble]
3 CoMHet - Mécanique et Couplages Multiphysiques des Milieux Hétérogènes
4 IRPHE - Institut de Recherche sur les Phénomènes Hors Equilibre

Silicone rubber membranes reinforced with architectured fibre networks were processed with a dedicated apparatus, allowing a control of the fibre content and orientation. The membranes were subjected to tensile loadings combined with continuous and discrete kinematical field measurements (DIC and particle tracking). These tests show that the mechanical behaviour of the membranes is hyperelastic at the first order. They highlight the influence of the fibre content and orientation on both the membrane in-plane deformation and stress levels. They also prove that for the considered fibrous architectures and mechanical loadings, the motion and deformation of fibres is an affine function of the macroscale transformation. These trends are fairly well described by the micromechanical model proposed recently in Bailly et al. (JMBBM, 2012). This result proves that these materials are very good candidates for new biomimetic membranes, e.g. to improve aortic analogues used for in vitro experiments, or existing textiles used for vascular (endo)prostheses.

Mots clés: Silicone rubber; Micro-mechanical model; Tensile tests; Biomimetism; Material design; Anisotropy; Fibre-reinforced membrane

Domaines: Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]; Matériaux et structures en mécanique [physics.class-ph]; Matériaux et structures en mécanique [physics.class-ph]; Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]; Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]

Lucie Bailly, Mamadou Toungara, Laurent Orgéas, Eric Bertrand, Valérie Deplano, et al.. In-plane mechanics of soft architectured fibre-reinforced silicone rubber membranes. Journal of the mechanical behavior of biomedical materials, 2014, 40, pp.339-353. ⟨10.1016/j.jmbbm.2014.09.012⟩. ⟨hal-01068035⟩