Measuring the High-Rate Large Deformation Recoil of Elastic Materials

In small mechanical systems, ranging from insects to microrobotics, elastic energy can be effectively used to drive ultra-fast movements. These systems slowly load energy into elastic structures before suddenly releasing them. Thus, understanding the behavior of elastic materials as they unload from large deformations at high-rates is a key step to understanding these elastically-driven systems. In our work, we have designed and built a custom instrument to directly measure the recoil behavior of elastic materials. In parallel, we simulate the elastic recoil of these materials based on their viscoelastic properties, which we independently characterize using dynamic mechanical analysis. Results from this approach indicate that non-linear viscoelasticity accurately predicts the recoil up to unaccounted for external dissipative forces.