Micromechanical analysis of pores on damping properties of particulate filled elastomer

This study aims to analyse the effect of different shapes of pores on the damping properties of spherical particle-filled composites. A two-step stochastic homogenization approach is developed to evaluate the effective elastic properties within the micromechanical framework. Modified Mori-Tanaka homogenization approach considering the differential scheme for iteratively addition of pores as well as fillers is incorporated in the present model. From the results, the saturated ratio of the stiffness of fillers to the matrix is found to exist beyond which further increase in the stiffness of the fillers does not add in the increase in the effective elastic properties. It is further noted that the presence of voids decreases the elastic properties significantly. The results obtained from the proposed model are found to be in good agreement with that obtained from the computational study.