Technical Challenge:  The behavior of elastomeric materials is controlled by the inherent non-linear viscoelasticity.  The nonlinear behavior makes the material strain-rate dependent and lose energy during cyclic loading (hysteresis). These behaviors are important for many applications, for example when determining the footprint of a tire.

Solution:  Veryst has developed a set of material models for elastomers that can handle both the small-strain dynamic and the large-strain non-linear viscoelastic response.  In this case we used the Bergstrom-Boyce (BB) model to determine the footprint of an inflated tire that is vertically loaded.

Result:  The BB model can be used to determine the change in contact area, and the stress and strain distributions as a function of time.