Rate‐dependent models require creep or mechanical tests at various strain rates in order to be identified and validated. Different geometries coexist for creep and static tests (normative geometry) and for dynamic tests. Therefore, due to geometrical sample considerations, experimental results could be inconsistent for identification or validation procedures, inducing, for example, differences on the shear modulus only due to the change of geometry. The objective of this work is to present an improved sample geometry that allows to obtain consistent mechanical tests results at various strain rates highlighting the rate dependencies of laminates. In particular, a complete mechanical validation of the sample geometry for dynamic tests is successfully performed in order to avoid inconsistency. Results of static and dynamic tests on the validated geometry are analysed, and the rate dependency of the elastic properties of the UD T700GC/M21 mesoscopic ply is highlighted on a wide strain rate range (10−3 to 102 s−1). Finally, the identification of a non‐linear viscoelastic model is performed on dynamic and creep tests results in order to obtain a representative model for dynamic, static and creep loadings, and to demonstrate the importance of introducing the improved geometry for the dynamic tests.

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International audienceIn the context of the female pelvic medicine, non-invasive Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is widely used for the diagnosis of pelvic floor disorders. Nowadays in the clinical routine, diagnoses rely largely on human interpretation of medical images, on the experience of physicians, with sometimes subjective interpretations. Hence, image correlation methods would be an alternative way to assist physicians to provide more objective analyses with standard procedures and parametrization for patient-specific cases. Moreover, the main symptoms of pelvic system pathologies are abnormal mobilities. The FEM (Finite Element Model) simulation is a powerful tool for understanding such mobilities. Both the patient-specific simulation and the image analysis require accurate and smooth geometries of the pelvic organs. This paper introduces a new method that can be classified as a model-to-image correlation approach. The method performs fast semi-automatic detection of the bladder, vagina and rectum from MR images for geometries reconstruction and further study of the mobilities. The approach consists of fitting a B-spline model to the organ shapes in real images via a generated virtual image. We provided efficient, adaptive and consistent segmentation on a dataset of 19 patient images (healthy and pathological)