Characterization of polyurethane rubber at high deformation rates

Polyurethane rubber materials have widespread usage in large-deformation energy absorption and dissipation applications. Accurate design modeling with these materials requires an appropriate constitutive material model that accounts for both static (low strain rate) and dynamic (high strain rate) responses. A common modeling approach is the use of hyper-viscoelastic formulations, which couple quasi-static hyperelastic with dynamic viscoelastic responses and describe the material response over a range of deformation rates. In this work the effectiveness of two models, the Modified Quasi-Linear Viscoelastic and Non-Linear Hyper-Viscoelastic, are investigated to describe the high-rate behaviour of two different grades of polyurethane rubber. From quasi-static, uniaxial compression tests, a Rivlin hyperelastic formulation was found to describe the low-rate response well. High-rate, uniaxial compressions test were performed using a Polymeric Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (PSHPB), supported by high-speed photography. In general, it was found that the Modified Quasi-Linear Viscoelastic model did not fit the experimental data well due to its limited non-linear terms, while the Non-Linear Hyper-Viscoelastic provided very good agreement.