Spherical Indentation Testing on Ballistic Gelatin and Perma-Gel

This paper reports on a series of indentation tests performed on ballistic gelatin (10%) and Perma-Gel. In these experiments, both gels were submitted to strain rates varying from 0.1 and 2.7 s⁻1 in quasi-static indentation. Two methods were used to evaluate the Young’s modulus from quasi-static indentation test: the Hertz theory and the Oliver-Pharr model. The dependence of strain rate was also analyzed. Finally, dynamic indentation tests were performed on both gels at frequencies of 0.1 and 1.0 Hz to evaluate the gel’s viscoelastic properties characterized by the storage modulus, the loss modulus and the phase angle.