A Dynamic Inflation Test for Soft Materials

We developed a dynamic inflation experiment to measure the elastodynamic behavior of soft materials. In the experiments, a shock tube was used to apply dynamic pressurization to thin polydimethylsiloxane specimens. Two high-speed cameras were used to image the deforming specimen and three-dimensional digital image correlation was used to determine the three-dimensional displacement field of the specimen surface. We applied dynamic Kirchhoff plate bending theory and concepts from structural dynamics to derive a mathematical expression for the dynamic Young’s modulus. The phase velocity of the initial transverse wave propagation response and the vibration frequency of the long-time response were captured during our experiments and were applied in the calculation of the dynamic Young’s modulus.