Bo Li, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, won the Superior Student Paper Award at the 33rd annual meeting and Conference on Tire Science and Technology, held here in Akron recently. The international conference, hosted by The Tire Society, drew students from the United States, China and Japan.
The paper details a method Li developed to predict the rubber tearing under dynamic loading – where the load on the structure is fluid and moving, like a tire on a moving car. This method is a product of research funded by the Center for Tire Research, a National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research program.
Working together with his advisor, Dr. Michelle Hoo Fatt, a professor of mechanical engineering, Li developed a 3D progressive damage model based on cohesive zone concept, which can be embedded in Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tools so that it can be used to predict the damage or crack growth in the rubber-like material.
“Actually, there are apparently two advantages of this new method,” says Li. “First, the analysis does not require a predefined crack path in the FEA model because the crack will be driven by the calculate solution itself. Second, this method is only dependent on the material properties — it can be used to predict any complicated structure, such as a tire, so that this method is valuable in industry. We already tried to apply this method to predict the impact damage on a ceramic matrix composite. The results show it can work well even for an extremely brittle material."