Mechanical Behavior of Natural Sheepskin Leather in Tension

In this research, we have studied the mechanical behavior of natural Sheepskin leather experimentally. Tensile tests were carried out on leather strips to observe their deformations and failure at strain rates ranging from 2 to 80mm/min. We performed a stress relaxation test for a strain of 20%, and the relaxation data recorded for 60 min. The obtained results show nonlinear stress-strain relations and viscoelastic behavior. Thus, we have described the mechanical characteristics of leather as a viscoelastic material. The acquired viscoelastic model parameters are extracted based on Maxwell s formulation. The model could quite accurately represent the experimental data. The same tests were also conducted for wet samples to investigate the effect of humidity on the mechanical behavior of sheepskin leather. Results show that high levels of moisture drastically affect strength

Keywords:

Sheepskin leather , Mechanical property , Strain rate , Relaxation test , Maxwell viscoelastic model , Natural leather .