Identification of Constitutive Parameters Governing the Hyperelastic Response of Rubber by Using Full-field Measurement and the Virtual Fields Method

In this study, the Virtual Fields Method (VFM) is applied to identify constitutive parameters of hyperelastic models from a heterogeneous test. Digital image correlation (DIC) was used to estimate the displacement and strain fields required by the identification procedure. Two different hyperelastic models were considered: the Mooney model and the Ogden model. Applying the VFM to the Mooney model leads to a linear system that involves the hyperelastic parameters thanks to the linearity of the stress with respect to these parameters. In the case of the Ogden model, the stress is a nonlinear function of the hyperelastic parameters and a suitable procedure should be used to determine virtual fields leading to the best identification. This complicates the identification and affects its robustness. This is the reason why the sensitivity-based virtual field approach recently proposed in case of anisotropic plasticity by Marek et al. (2017) [1] has been successfully implemented to be applied in case of hyperelasticity. Results obtained clearly highlight the benefits of such an inverse identification approach in case of non-linear systems.