Uniaxial and equi-biaxial tension tests of silicone elastomer

At Technical University of Ilmenau a Peristaltically Actuated Device for Minimal Invasive Surgery (PADeMIS) is being developed. PADeMIS will be produced from silicone rubber and its design is being optimized by Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Thus, a constitutive law of silicone rubber is required. When an element of PADeMIS is hydraulically actuated the resulting deformation corresponds approximately to a biaxial tension. On the other hand uniaxial tension tests are generally easier to perform than biaxial tension tests. Therefore, in this paper the validity of a Mooney–Rivlin law, adapted to one loading case and describing deformations during other loading cases is investigated. Furthermore, the results of fitting the parameters of the Mooney— Rivlin law to the data of equi-biaxial and uniaxial tension tests of silicone rubber simultaneously are presented.