Direct Measurement of Poisson's Ratio in Elastomers

Abstract Poisson's ratio has been measured in a series of filled elastomers using a novel optoelectronic system. Relative precision of this measurement was found to be approximately 0.7% at 1% strain for this family of materials. The largest contributing error source was determined to be the tolerances that could be obtained in machining the surfaces of the test specimens. As a result of these errors, only three significant figures for Poisson's ratio can be achieved using this measurement approach. Material property tests conducted included constant strain rate and stress relaxation. Constant strain-rate results were used for general characterization, while the stress—relaxation data were employed to investigate time-dependent aspects of Poisson's ratio.