Experimental determination of the dynamic elastic modulus of polymeric soft materials in an extended frequency range: A supported free loading-mass method

• Wide-frequency dynamic test method for anti-vibration soft materials is described. • Test method is a based on laser-Doppler velocimetry. • Compatibility of results with standard ones is shown. • Temperature behaviour through superimposition principle is also provided. In this paper, an experimental test method to accurately measure the complex dynamic elastic modulus of soft materials designed for anti-vibration purposes over a wide frequency range with high resolution at low uncertainty levels is proposed and applied to six polymeric soft materials. The proposed experimental technique, based on standardized test set-up and laser-Doppler velocimetry, is conceived to provide the uniaxial dynamic modulus of these materials on the basis of the exact solution of the Newton’s second law differential equation of a free loading-mass supported by a spring-damper system and subjected to an underlying dynamic stress. After a preliminary characterization with different standard procedures, the dynamic elastic modulus and damping properties of the six materials are investigated over a frequency range of 25–1000 Hz. The overall expanded uncertainty, on average around 3 %, is determined from five repeated measurements including the instrumental uncertainty. Results are compared with the standard ones.