High Strain Rate Behaviour of Elastomers

This afternoon technical discussion meeting (ATDM) examined the use of elastomers at high strain rates.

Dr Peter Gould's PDF Slides

Brice Taillet's PDF Slides

Gary Critchlow's PDF Slides

Akash Trivedi's PDF Slides

Jason Foley's PDF Slides

This afternoon technical discussion meeting (ATDM) examined the use of elastomers at high strain rates. It included a discussion of how to test the material behaviour at high strain rates as well as how to design rubber devices that operate under such conditions. The meeting was held in Pembroke College, Oxford University.

Programme

13:30 Introduction - Prof James Busfield (QMUL)

Rubber under high triaxial loading - Dr Peter Gould (QinetiQ, UK)

Rubbers are often assumed to be incompressible in behaviour,  but under significant triaxial loading either in compression or tension this is no longer true.  There are models that can describe this mechanical behaviour, but temperature, thermodynamics and thermomechanical behaviour complicate this approach.

New Possibilities for Characterising Elastomers using Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) at High Strain Rates - Brice Taillet (Metravib, France)

DMA is widely used to measure viscoelastic properties of elastomers. A high force DMA can attain high strain rates and measures data to help optimise polymer compounding and to predict product performance. This talks presents an overview of the measurement capabilities of the latest generation DMA to undertake elastomer materials characterisation.

Elastomer-ceramic Micro-composites for Armour Strike-face or Interlayers - Gary Critchlow (Loughborough Univeristy, UK)

Predicting the high rate response of soft materials: From polymers to particulate composites - Akash Trivedi (Oxford University, UK)
There is increasing interest in the mechanical response of low modulus polymers and bio-materials to high strain rate deformation, such as occurs during impact loading.  However, measuring this response is still a challenge.  This talk will give a brief overview of traditional high strain rate measurement methods, and their application to low modulus materials, outlining some of the difficulties in performing and interpreting these experiments.  It will then give descriptions of more recently developed techniques, specifically the use of time-temperature superposition and wave propagation to as methods to diagnose response to high rate properties. 

Aerospace Applications of Elastomers for Extreme Environments:  Challenges & Opportunities - Jason Foley (US Air Force, USA)

Elastomers are nearly ubiquitous aerospace applications.  However, the design of systems for the extreme environments encountered in military service requires performance that is simply beyond the capabilities of presently available materials. The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is exploring the use of elastomeric materials to manipulate and control the propagation of mechanical energy in complex systems.  Research into passive and active shock-mitigation systems for electronics, the dynamics of energetic composites, and micro-architected, magneto-responsive elastomers for active control of dynamic response will be discussed.

End Time 16:00

This event was free to attend due to the generous RIEG sponsorship from ARTIS.

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