Modeling of characteristics at compression and functional properties of hyperelastic polyurethane materials applied in mechanical engineering

The materials showing great reversible deformations (hyperelastic ones) namely non-compressible elastomers and compressible polyurethane foams were subjects of investigations. The behavior of these materials at compression has been modeled. Polynomial models were used for the description of elastomers while Ogden's models of various orders were applied to describe the foams. Calculations results were verified experimentally (Fig. 1-4). Additionally, several functional properties of the materials were evaluated from the point of view of their applications: elastomers differing in ratios of rigid (S) and elastic (G) segments (S/G = 0.25,0.5 or 0.75) as shimmy dumpers (Fig. 5-7, Table 1 and 2) and soft foams applied for car seats' construction (Fig. 8 and 9). The characteristics of materials consisted of glass transition temperature of elastomers (important when applied at low temperature), their resilience, hardness and abrasive wear as well as, for soft foams, also compression modulus and damping capacity.