Experimental investigation of strain rate effect on reinforced elastomeric material behavior (HDPE/POE) under quasi static and dynamic loading

Elastomers are a group of polymeric materials that have unique properties, including time-dependent behavior and time-independent, the mechanical behavior of this material is affected by various factors. In this study, the effect of increasing the silica nanoparticles and strain rates in two quasi-static and dynamic states on the tensile behavior of HDPE / POE has been investigated. For this purpose, an elastomeric material was first created with 40% HDPE and 60% POE mixing ratio. Then with increasing Nano silica particles, 4 sample types including 3 samples 0.7%, 1% and 1.4%, and one sample of HDPE/POE was fabricated. The samples were loaded at strain rate of 0.04 1⁄s, 0.07 1⁄s , 0.1 1⁄s , 0.14 1⁄s , 0.17 1⁄s in a quasi-static tensile state. In dynamic mode, tensile load with a strain rate of 160 1⁄s and 100 1⁄s was applied to the specimens using a new fixture designed on the low velocity impact test machine (Drop weight impact test machine). In the dynamic loading, the behavior of the elastomeric material is extremely dependent on the strain rate, with increasing the strain rate the level of stress and forces in both quasi-static and dynamic loads will be increase. The increase in force levels in dynamic loading is much more than static. Also, the new designed mechanism provides access to dynamic tensile data at different strain rates in a low velocity impact machine. On the other hand, with increasing Nano silica percentage, the tensile strength of the samples is noticeably increased.