Determination of Tensile Properties of Polymers at High Strain Rates

Johannes Kepler University, Institute of Polymer Product Engineering, Linz, Austria

Abstract

In the field of high rate testing of polymers the measured properties are highly dependent on the applied methodology. Hence, the test setup as whole but in particular also the geometrical type of specimen plays a decisive role. The widely used standard for the determination of tensile properties of polymers (ISO527-2) was extended by a novel standard (ISO18872:2007), which is targeted on the determination of tensile properties at high strain rates. In this standard also a novel specimen shape is proposed. Hand in hand with the introduction of new specimen geometry the question of comparability arises. To point out the differences in stress-strain response of the ISO18872 specimen and the ISO527-2 multipurpose specimen tensile tests over a wide loading rate range were conducted in this paper. A digital image correlation system in combination with a high speed camera was used to characterize the local material behaviour. Different parameters like nominal stress, true stress, nominal strain, true strain as well as volumetric strain were determined and used to compare the two specimen geometries.