Static and Dynamic Tensile Mechanical Behavior of Polyvinyl Chloride Elastomers with Different Shore Hardness

An experiment on the static and dynamic tensile mechanical properties of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) elastomers is conducted using an Instron-5943 universal testing machine and an improved Split Hopkinson Tensile Bar to study the dynamic tensile mechanical properties of PVC elastomer materials. The stress-strain curves of PVC materials with three types of Shore hardness (57A, 52A, and 47A) under the strain rates of 0.1 s−1 and 400 ∼ 1800 s−1 are obtained. Results show that the mechanical behavior of PVC elastomer materials with different Shore hardness has remarkable linear elastic characteristics under the action of quasistatic tensile load. It has substantial sensitivity to strain rate and viscoelastic mechanical characteristics under the action of dynamic tensile load. The Zhu–Wang–Tang nonlinear viscoelastic constitutive model is used to characterize the viscoelastic mechanical characteristics with small error. This paper can provide theoretical model and method support for the design, development, production, and reliability analysis of PVC elastomers and other soft polymer materials.