In this study, a light-weight uniaxial tension test fixture was developed which can be adapted to any uniaxial tension testing machine and used to characterize dynamic behavior of material systems such as elastomers under large deformation. Two different elastomeric materials, RTV 630 and Flexane 94 were tested at quasi-static (0.001 s−1) to moderate (100 s−1) strain rate loading to capture their dynamic behavior and investigate the repeatability and stress equilibrium aspects of the test system. Experimental results showed homogenous deformation of the specimens over the strain rate range investigated, and the specimens exhibited stiffer stress-strain response at higher strain rates. Furthermore, the experimental data were utilized to identify parameters of different hyperelastic material models, and the optimal identified material parameters were used to construct numerical models of the dynamic test system for both new and conventional mechanical grip test fixtures in LS-DYNA. The comparison of the numerical simulation with experimental results showed good agreement. Both experimental and simulation results indicate that the new test device can characterize dynamic behavior of elastomers and produce quality test data compared to conventional setup.
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