Study of the Fatigue Behavior of the Polychloroprene Rubber with Stress Variation Tests

In this study we study the fatigue behavior of a polychloroprene rubber using designed specific variable amplitude tests to gather insight into such material behavior. Firstly, increasing force amplitude block load tests were carried out that permits us to determine the stress amplitude at which fatigue damage is significant. In a second series of tests block programmed tests were carried out. During these tests the hysteresis energy and stiffness were also measured. These measurements bring out possibly a competition between two mechanisms the crystallization effect and the effect of crack propagation. The first mechanism tends to increase the stiffness while the second decreases the stiffness.