The complete loading–unloading–deflection response is a key requirement for the antivibration design. Hyperelastic models have already been widely used in industries over many years and are suitable for the loading predictions but not capable for the evaluation of the unloading (the stress softening or the Mullins effect) conditions. The response of antivibration components is significantly different between the upload and the unload conditions and can cause the unforeseen performance of the system. This article proposes a hyperelastic-unloading model to predict (not limited to simulate) the complete load–unload–deflection response of the rubber antivibration systems using only one parameter, i.e. resilience index. Six industrial products have successfully been used for the verification. A key finding is that the complete loading–unloading response can be obtained realistically using the resilience index for the design of brand new products without data fitting procedures. The value can be altered for existing products to suit different applications. In industries, the existing hyperelastic models can be easily modified to the hyperelastic-unloading models without changing their values of the original parameters. The suggested approach is effective and can be used in the antivibration analysis and applications.
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