Sensor calibration of polymeric Hopkinson bars for dynamic testing of soft materials

Split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) testing is one of the most common techniques for the estimation of the constitutive behaviour of metallic materials. In this paper, the characterisation of soft rubber-like materials has been addressed by means of polymeric bars thanks to their reduced mechanical impedance. Due to their visco-elastic nature, polymeric bars are more sensitive to temperature changes than metallic bars, and due to their low conductance, the strain gauges used to measure the propagating wave in an SHPB may be exposed to significant heating. Consequently, a calibration procedure has been proposed to estimate quantitatively the temperature influence on strain gauge output. Furthermore, the calibration is used to determine the elastic modulus of the polymeric bars, which is an important parameter for the synchronisation of the propagation waves measured in the input and output bar strain gate stations, and for the correct determination of stress and strain evolution within the specimen. An example of the application has been reported in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique. Different tests at different strain rates have been carried out on samples made of nytrile butadyene rubber (NBR) from the same injection moulding batch. Thanks to the correct synchronisation of the measured propagation waves measured by the strain gauges and applying the calibrated coefficients, the mechanical behaviour of the NBR material is obtained in terms of strain-rate-strain and stress-strain engineering curves