Experimental and numerical investigation into nonlinear deformation of silicone rubber pads during ink transfer process

Through combined experimental and numerical investigation, the applicability of various constitutive models for predicting the nonlinear stress-strain behaviour of three silicone rubber compounds was explored under conditions that are relevant to the large deformations that are encountered in the pad printing process. The effectiveness of the proposed model was tested against experiments on silicone rubber specimens. In application, the model exhibited very good agreement between the predicted force level and that measured on the pad press, and it provides new insight into the contact evolution during the ink transfer cycle. The results have shown that hardness as well as friction affects the pad distortion and, hence, the image dimensions that are critical for applications such as printing functional devices. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.