Hyperelastic behavior of two rubber materials under quasistatic and dynamic compressive loadings - Testing, modeling and application

The mechanical properties of two rubber materials, RB-55 rubber and FM-32 foam rubber,were tested under quasistatic and dynamic compressive loadings with a universal testing machine and a nonmetallic split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB), respectively. The results show that the hyperelasticity dominates the mechanical characteristics of the both materials. And the strain rate dependencies can be observed over the wide strain rate range from 10^-2 s^-1 to order 10³ s^-1. But in the rather narrow bands of 10^-2 - 10⁰ s^-1 and 2 · 10³ - 6 · 10³ s^-1, the strain rate effects are not significant. In order to numerically simulate rod-explosive loading tests where the two rubber materials were used as a combined buffer, the strain rate-independent hyperelastic behaviors at the strain rate of order 10³ s^-1were characterized by Ogden constitutive models, incompressible for RB-55 rubber and compressible for FM-32 foam rubber, respectively. The numerical prediction of the structural responses agrees verywell with the experimental results. This means the testing and modeling are successful.