A polyurethane-urea elastomer at low to extreme strain rates

Abstract

A finite strain nonlinear constitutive model is presented to study the extreme mechanical behavior of a polyurethane-urea well suited for many engineering applications. The micromechanically- and thermodynamically based constitutive model captures salient features in resilience and dissipation in the material at low to high strain rate. The extreme deformation features are further elucidated by laser-induced micro-particle impact tests for the material, where an ultrafast strain rate ($>10^6$ s$^{-1}$) incurs. Numerical simulations for the strongly inhomogeneous deformation events are in good agreement with the experimental data, supporting the predictive capabilities of the constitutive model for the extreme deformation features of the PUU material over at least 9 orders of magnitude in strain rates ($10^{-3}$ to $10^{6}$ s$^{-1}$).