Characterisation of a polymer using biaxial tension tests. Part I: Hyperelasticity

The present contribution deals with the experimental characterisation of silicone specimens and the adaptation of well-known standard material models of the finite hyperelasticity to the experimental data. Therefore, uniaxial tension tests as well as biaxial tension tests are performed. The focus of the work lies on the detailed description of a new experimental set-up and the adaptation of the material model. For this purpose, the performance of models fitted to experimental data of uniaxial tests is compared to the adjustment of the models to data from biaxial tests. The experimentalist as well as the modeller are sensitised that the adaptation of material models to experimental data won from the uniaxial tension experiments generally does not allow adequate statements with respect to the real material behaviour under multiaxial loading. The work closes with a summary and an outlook on forthcoming investigations.