The absorption of polymeric composites

Abstract

An absorption capacity of soft, viscoelastic materials at high strain rates is important for wide range of practical applications. Nowadays there are many variants of numerical models suitable for this kind of analysis. The main difficulty is in selection of the most realistic numerical model and a correct setup of many unknown material constants. Cooperation between theoretical simulations and real testing is next crucial point in the investigation process. Standard open source material database offer material properties valid for strain rates less than 250 s-1. There are experiments suitable for analysis of material properties with strain rates close to 2000 s-1. The high strain-rate characteristics of a specific porous blast energy absorbing material measured by modified Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar apparatus is presented in this study. Testing these low impedance materials using a metallic split Hopkinson pressure bar setup results in poor signal to noise ratios due to impedance mismatching. These difficulties are overcome by using polymeric Hopkinson bars. Conventional Hopkinson bar analysis cannot be used on the polymeric bars due to the viscoelastic nature of the bar material. One of the possible solution leads to complex and frequency depended Young modulus of testing bars material. This testing technique was applied to materials composed of porous glass/ceramic filler and polymeric binder, with density of 125 - 300 kg/m3 and particle size in range of 50 µm – 2 mm. The achieved material model was verified in practical application of sandwich structure includes polymeric composites under a blast test.