A Novel Wave Propagation Method for Measuring Viscoelastic Properties of Prestrained Materials

Abstract

Viscoelastic materials are widely used for vibroacoustic solutions due to their ability to mitigate vibration and sound. Wave propagation methods are based on the measurement of the waveform pattern of a transitory pulse in one-dimensional structures. The time evolution of the pattern can be used to deduce the material elasticity and damping characteristics. The most popular propagation methods, namely Hopkinson bar methods, assume no dispersion, i.e. the complex elasticity modulus is not frequency-dependent. This is not significant for resilient materials such as elastomers. More recent approaches have been developed to measure frequency-dependent properties from a pulse propagating in a slender bar. We showed in previous works how to adapt these techniques for shorter samples of materials, representing a real advance, as extrusion is a cumbersome process for many materials. The main concept was to reconstruct the time history of the wave propagating in a composite structure composed of a long incident bar made of a known material and extended by a shorter sample bar. Then the viscoelastic properties of the sample material were determined in the frequency domain within an inverse method held in the time domain. In industry, most isolation solutions using mounts or bushings must support structural weights. This is why it is particularly interesting to know the viscoelastic properties of the material in stressed state. Here, we show how to overcome this challenging issue. The theoretical framework of the computational approach is detailed and the method is experimentally verified.