Material Characterization for the Simulation of Drop Tests Against PMMA Sheets

Abstract: There is a high demand for implementing simulations in the design and product devel-opment processes, avoiding the execution of costly tests on prototypes and giving thechance of discarding unsuitable designs, as well as exploring possible ones without much cost added.This project assignment is to find a suitable way to simulate drop tests on two typesof PMMA sheets, a material widely used on luminaire covers. Therefore, it becomesnecessary to study the mechanical behavior of these materials, using experimental tests,in order to calibrate the material models used in the simulations.During the experimental testing, common polymer behaviors were found on the twostudied materials, such as rate dependence, non-linear elasticity, viscoelasticity and vis-coplasticy. Behaviors which presented several challenges regarding the choice and cali-bration of the material models.The two di?erent polymers were calibrated for the simulations using two di?erentmaterial models. An elastic-plastic (Drucker Prager Plasticity) model was used for oneof the materials, whereas an hyperelastic-viscoelastic model was used for the other one.Finally, several drop tests simulations were conducted and compared with experimentaltests