Nonlinear visco-hyperelastic tensile constitutive model of spray polyurea within wide strain-rate range

Abstract

Spray polyurea (SPUA) is widely used as a protective coating material for structures subjected to the intensive impulsive loadings, attributed to its prominent large tensile deformation capacity and strain-rate hardening effect. This paper aims to study the tensile properties of SPUA within a wide strain-rate range both experimentally and theoretically. Firstly, by reasonably designing the geometry and dimension of specimens, a series of quasi-static and dynamic uniaxial tensile tests were carried out, and the nonlinear stress-strain curves corresponding to the strain-rates ranging from 10−3 s−1 to 103 s−1 were obtained. It showed that the mechanical properties of SPUA are sensitive to the strain-rate, i.e., the elastic modulus and tensile stress increase with the rising of the strain-rate, while the fracture strain is linearly negatively correlated with the logarithm of strain-rate. Then, a nonlinear visco-hyperelastic (NVHE) constitutive model composed of a 3rd-order polynomial hyperelastic model and seven Prony series terms describing the viscoelastic properties were established, and the corresponding twenty-three model parameters were calibrated through a multi-objective optimization based on genetic algorithm. Furthermore, based on the finite element program ABAQUS/Explicit, the validations of the proposed NVHE model and the parameters determination approach are verified by the present tensile test and existing drop hammer impact test. This work could provide a helpful reference for the retrofitting design of the protective structures.