Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability LBFThe Division Plastics of Fraunhofer LBF has testing technologies available for stress-strain-experiments for elastomers. This highly flexible method can be utilized for material characterization and development. The measurement software allows continuous and stepwise tension tests or time resolved creep experiments. The software available is suited for the interpretation of measurement data and the adjustment to material models.
Tensile Testing of Elastomers
The measurement station for tensile testing of elastomers (picture above) developed at Fraunhofer LBF can examine the influence of thermal aging on the elastic behavior, for example.
The middle figure shows an example of a stepwise tensile test with stress relaxation on soot filled elastomeric samples after different aging durations at 100 °C under air atmosphere.
Stress-strain-curves (polynomial adjustment) of the same sample are depicted in the lower figure. A rise in elongation dependent strain can be seen with increasing aging time.