Bending of long, rectangular-section bonded rubber blocks

Readily-calculable explicit closed-form representations are determined for the bending stiffness of, and stresses within, generally loaded bonded rubber blocks of long, rectangular cross-section. They satisfy exactly the stated governing equations and conditions based upon the classical theory of elasticity. From these, more detailed investigations are given for the especially interesting loading cases corresponding to simple bending, cantilever loading and apparent shear. It is observed that the deformed profiles of the side surfaces are not in general parabolic as has been usually assumed previously. In simple bending an improved approximate elementary expression is deduced for the couple needed to create a specified rotation of the loaded end of the block. Similarly, in apparent shear a more realistic simple estimate is derived from the exact expression for the ratio of the true to the apparent shear modulus.