For more information on this presentation, please contact Davide De Focatiis.
There is always a need for reliable experimental data, whether to support the development of constitutive models, or to provide parameters, and in general standards provide a convenient methodology. There are, however, often circumstances that prevent the use of standard methods, for example a limited supply of material, limited funds to purchase the equipment required, or just an absence of applicable standards. This talk will focus on one example in which a new test fixture has been developed to address a specific research requirement: the need for accessible and low-cost biaxial testing for polymers and elastomers. A remarkably simple fixture was designed based on a single degree of freedom mechanism and a variable number of clamps arranged along a circumference, able to stretch polymers biaxially using the actuation provided by a standard uniaxial test machine. Validation was performed on several elastomers by comparison with a twin-axis biaxial machine, and different variants of the fixture have also been compared in terms of number of clamping points and of grip design.
Faculty of EngineeringThe University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham, NG7 2RD
email:AdvMaterials@nottingham.ac.uk