The purpose of this investigation was to provide quality dynamic strength properties for a solid grade severe-weather (SW) brick material and to illustrate the need for careful evaluation of the strain-rate effects on geomaterials. A split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) was used to perform a series of tests on specimens from a solid grade SW brick to determine the mechanical response of this material at high strain-rates. Both classical and modified SHPB tests were performed. The results from the classical SHPB tests provided evidence that modifications to the SHPB are necessary when testing geomaterials such as brick. To modify the SHPB, a small copper disk was placed at the impact end of the SHPB incident bar to increase the rise time of the initial pulse. The material response from the modified SHPB tests provided an average compressive strength of 104 MPa, which resulted in a dynamic increase factor of 1.42.

High entropy alloys (HEAs) are a relatively new class of solid solution alloys that contain multiple principal elements to take advantage of their high configurational entropy, sluggish diffusion, lattice distortion, and the cocktail effect. In recent development, work hardening mechanisms known as twinning induced plasticity (TWIP) and transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) have been found active in Al0.3CoCrFeNi (molar fraction) and Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 (at %) HEA compositions. Friction-stir processing was done to increase the mechanical properties and improve the microstructure of the alloys for the purpose of high strain rate performance. Quasi-static tensile tests as well as top-hat geometry Split-Hopkinson pressure bar tests were conducted to view the mechanical properties as well as view the microstructural evolution at dynamic strain rates. Overall, the Al0.3CoCrFeNi condition after friction-stir processing and heat treatment has proved to have the best mechanical properties, and selecting from the conditions in this study, Al0.3CoCrFeNi has better shear localization resistance.

Zur Beantwortung der Frage, wie sich die festigkeitssteigernden Effekte aus mehraxialer und dynamischer Druckbelastung in Beton überlagern wurde ein weltweit einzigartiger zweiaxialer Split-Hopkinson-Bar entwickelt. Es wurden umfangreiche Versuchsserien mit insgesamt mehr als 2500 Einzelversuchen durchgeführt. Ermittelt wurden dabei die ein- und zweiaxialen statischen und dynamischen Betondruckfestigkeiten zweier Betone der Druckfestigkeitsklassen C20/25 und C40/50. Die Versuchsergebnisse wurden hinsichtlich der Festigkeitsentwicklung in Abhängigkeit vom Spannungsverhältnis und der Dehnrate ausgewertet. Die Ergebnisse aus den zweiaxialen dynamischen Betondruckversuchen konnten als dreidimensionale Abhängigkeit der Spannungen in beiden Belastungsachsen von der Dehnrate für jede der beiden Betonsorten abgebildet werden. Aus den Ergebnissen wurde ein Ingenieurmodell für jede Betonsorte entwickelt, welches die Betondruckfestigkeitsentwicklung in Abhängigkeit vom Spannungsverhältnis und der Dehnrate beschreibt. Mit zunehmender Dehnrate wird die zweiaxiale Ergebniskurve um einen zusätzlichen, dynamischen Anteil der Festigkeitssteigerung vergrößert. Dabei kommt es aber nur zu einer teilweisen Überlagerung der beiden betrachteten festigkeitssteigernden Einflüsse. Eine Abschätzung der Größenordnung der jeweiligen Einflüsse aus Mehraxialität und hoher Belastungsgeschwindigkeit konnte durch eine entsprechend differenzierte Auswertung vorgenommen werden. Die Untersuchung der Bruchstücke der zerstörten Probekörper zeigte, dass die Verteilung der Partikelgröße stark von der Dehnrate abhängig ist. Im Gegensatz dazu hängt die Partikelgeometrie und die Form und Masse der entstehenden Kernbruchstücke vom Spannungsverhältnis ab.

The need for efficient, lightweight armour solutions has never been so great as it is today. Increasing numbers of personnel, both military and civilian are being placed in an expanding variety of life-threatening situations, and we must recognise the responsibility to maximise their combat survivability. One way to help protect these people is to provide them with some form of armour. Advanced polymeric materials are finding an increasing range of industrial and defence applications. These materials have the potential to improve the performance of current armour systems, whilst also reducing their cost and weight. Polymers may be reinforced with the addition of nanofillers such as carbon nanotubes or graphene, to produce nanocomposites, an exciting emerging polymer technology. Nanomaterials have been shown to exhibit extraordinary strength, far higher than that of traditional armour materials. Nanocomposites have the possibility of being remarkable materials, with high strength and light weight. The work detailed in this report is an investigation into the mechanical properties of nanocomposites along with some novel blended polymer composites. Two compressive testing techniques have been used to carry out this investigation. The intermediate strain-rate Optical Drop-Weight, and the high strain-rate Split-Hopkinson Pressure Bar. The latter required some significant modifications in order to optimise it for use with low-density polymers. Ultimately, nanocomposites were found to behave virtually indistinguishably from the monolithic polymer matrices. Yield strengths and energy absorption characteristics remained inside the ordinary experimental scatter. Blended composites, in which a long chain length polymer is combined with a chemically similar polymer with a shorter chain length, proved to be more interesting. Yield strengths of these novel materials were increased over that of either constituent material, although energy absorption remained low.

More and more, advanced polymer and composite materials are being applied in engineering situations where a high resistance to loading at high rates of strain, such as by impact or blast deformation, are a vital requirement. Specific examples exist in the fields of defence and sport research and development for personal, and in the case of the former, vehicular, protection. There are obvious advantages to the use of polymer materials for these applications in augmenting the more widely used metals and ceramics, most notably the evident reduction in weight, and it is believed that with suitable nano-reinforcement these materials may exhibit improved combat survivability. The current study concerns the effect that nano-reinforcements in the form of Carbon Black, Titanium Dioxide, Exfoliated Hectorite Nanoclay and Carbon Nanotubes; have upon the high strain rate mechanical properties of structural variants of Polyethylene (Linear Low Density Polyethylene, LLDPE; High Density Polyethylene, HDPE; Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, UHMWPE) and blends of UHMWPE and HDPE. The testing samples were manufactured using a novel process developed in the Loughborough University Materials Department, which has produced well-dispersed specimens. The formed nanocomposite samples were studied using an in-house four-bar Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) system for high strain rate performance, instrumented dropweight for intermediate strain rates and a conventional commercial Hounsfield H50KM universal testing machine for quasi-static strain rate compressive tests. The experimental results recorded for un-reinforced materials are used as a reference to allow comparative analysis of any effect the nano-reinforcements or the blending process have upon the structure, performance and properties of the composite material. From the mechanical testing, it was seen that the stress-strain behaviour of Polyethylene is highly strain-rate-dependent, as plots of the average representative yield stress as a function of strain rate show a bilinear relationship when plotted on a logarithmic strain rate scale, with the gradient of the curve rising sharply at around 103s-1. Concerning the addition of the nanofiller materials, it was seen that there was an increase in the flow and yield stresses and the energy absorption characteristics of the resulting composite with the magnitude dependent upon whether it was a pure or blended polymer that was reinforced. Of the aforementioned fillers it was seen that the addition of Carbon Nanotubes in the small concentrations studied resulted in the greatest increase in properties compared to the pure polymers, closely followed by the Carbon Black fillers. Also of note, the un-reinforced blended samples showed significant increases in flow stress, yield stress and energy absorption when compared to the constituent UHMWPE and HDPE polymers. Additionally, a complete set of Differential Scanning Calorimetry and density measurements were made before testing to assess any changes in the properties after reinforcement or blending, and to help in the interpretation of the results from the different mechanical tests.

L’objectif de la thèse est la caractérisation expérimentale du frottement entre l’acier et un matériau fragile. Les pressions et les vitesses de glissement qu’on cherche à atteindre sont respectivement de l’ordre de 10 à 100 MPa et l’ordre de 10 à 100 m/s. Les tribomètres classiques ne peuvent pas être utilisés car les pressions qu’on cherche à atteindre sont suffisamment élevées pour mener le matériau fragile à rupture. Pour pallier cette difficulté, le matériau doit être confiné. Un échantillon cylindrique du matériau est alors inséré dans un tube en acier qui fait à la fois office de confinement et de surface de frottement. Avec cette configuration, comme nous ne pouvons pas effectuer de mesures directes au niveau de l’interface, les paramètres de frottement sont identifiés à partir de mesures indirectes et de modèles analytique et numérique. Deux types de dispositifs ont été conçus pour effectuer à la fois des essais d’orientation en quasistatique et des essais sur barres de Hopkinson. Les essais quasi-statiques permettent une identification fiable du frottement et montrent que des pressions de 100 MPa peuvent être obtenues avec notre configuration sans dégrader le matériau fragile. En revanche, les essais sur barres de Hopkinson ne donnent pas satisfaction. Un dispositif spécifiquement adapté à la dynamique rapide a alors été conçu. Il permet d’identifier le frottement sous des pressions de 100 MPa et des vitesses de10 m/s. / The aim of the thesis is the experimental characterisation of the friction between steel and a brittle material. The desired pressures and the desired sliding velocities are respectively of the order of 10-100 MPa and 10-100 m/s. Usual tribometers cannot be used because the desired pressures are high enough to fracture the brittle material. The material has to be confined to overcome this difficulty. A cylindrical sample of the material is therefore inserted into a steel tube which acts both as a confinement and a sliding surface. Such a configuration does not enable to carry on direct measurements on the interface, the friction parameters are thus identified from indirect measurements and from analytical and numerical models. Two types of set-up have been designed to carry on both quasi-static tests and tests on split Hopkinson pressure bars. Quasi-static tests enable a reliable identification of friction and show that the desired pressures can be reached with our configuration whilst retaining the brittle material integrity. Unfortunately, the results obtained with split Hopkinson pressure bars are not satisfactory. A set-up specifically adapted to dynamic situations has thus been designed. It enables identification of friction under pressure of 100 MPa and velocities of 10 m/s.

A Thesis Submitted Towards the Partial Fulfilment Degree of Master of Technology (M.Tech.) FACULTY OF ENGINEERING MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT Cape Peninsula University of Technology 2011 / The split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) test is the most commonly used method for determining material properties at high rates of strain. The theory governing the specifics of Hopkinson bar testing has been around for decades; however, it has only been for the last decade or so that significant data processing advancements have been made. It is the intent of this thesis to offer the insight of application of SHPB to determine the compressive dynamic behaviour for welded low carbon steel (mild steel). It also focuses on the tensile behaviour for unheat-treated and heat-treated welded carbon steel. The split Hopkinson Pressure bar apparatus consists of two long slender bars that sandwich a short cylindrical specimen between them. By striking the end of a bar, a compressive stress wave is generated that immediately begins to traverse towards the specimen. Upon arrival at the specimen, the wave partially reflects back towards the impact end. The remainder of the wave transmits through the specimen and into the second bar, causing irreversible plastic deformation in the specimen. It is shown that the reflected and transmitted waves are proportional to the specimen's strain rate and stress, respectively. Specimen strain can be determined by integrating the strain rate. By monitoring the strains in the two bars and the specimen's material, stress-strain properties can be calculated. Several factors influence the accuracy of the results, including the size and type of the data logger, impedance mismatch of the bars with the specimens, the utilization of the appropriate strain gauges and the strain amplifier properties, among others. A particular area of advancement is a new technique to determine the wave's velocity in the specimen with respect to change in medium and mechanical properties, and hence increasing the range of application of SHPB. It is shown that by choosing specimen dimensions based on their impedance, the transmitted stress signal-to-noise ratio can be improved. An in depth discussion of realistic expectations of strain gages is presented, along with closed form solutions validating any claims. The thesis concludes with an analysis of experimental and predicted results. Several recommendations and conclusions are made with regard to the results obtained and areas of improvement are suggested in order to achieve accurate and more meaningful results.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a growing concern among American citizens and globally. This study proposes the use of a novel mechanical testing method for interrupting adult porcine brain tissue while under varying levels of high rate compressive strain to better understand the mechanical response of brain while under TBI inducing conditions. Testing was performed using a polymeric Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) along with customized attachments developed in-house to interrupt tissue samples at strain levels of 15%, 30%, and 40% while being compressed at strain rates of 650, 800, and 900 s-1. Following interruption, the samples were chemically fixed in preparation for histological processing. Microscopy techniques were used to examine the microstructure of the deformed tissue samples and measure the area fraction of their neural constituents. The combination of both the mechanical and microstructural responses of the brain tissue allowed for the development of a structure-property relationship.

Strain hardening cement-based composites (SHCC) and textile reinforced concrete (TRC) are two types of novel cementitious materials which can be used for strengthening structural elements against impact loading. Under tensile loading, these composites exhibit a strain hardening behavior, accompanied with formation of multiple cracks. The multiple cracking and strain hardening behavior yield a high strain and energy absorption capacity, thus making SHCC and TRC suitable materials for impact resistant structures or protective layers. The design and optimization of such composites for impact resistant applications require a comprehensive characterization of their behavior under various impact loadings. Specifically, the rate dependent behavior of the composites and their constituents, i.e. matrix, reinforcement, and their bond, need to be described. In the context of dynamic testing, SHCC, TRC and their constituents require customized experimental setups. The geometry of the sample, ductility of the material, the need for adapters and their influence on the measurements, as well as the influence of inertia are the key aspects which should be considered in developing the impact testing setups. The thesis at hand deals with the development process of various impact testing setups for both composite scale and constituent scale. The crucial aspects to be taken into account are discussed extensively. As a result, a gravity driven split-Hopkinson tension bar was developed. The setup was used for performing impact tension experiments on SHCC, TRC and yarn-matrix bond. Moreover, its applicability for performing impact shear experiments was examined. Additionally, a mini split-Hopkinson tension bar for high speed micromechanical experiments was designed and built. In the case of compressive loading, the performance of SHCC was investigated in a split-Hopkinson pressure bar. The obtained results, with focus on tensile experiments, were evaluated concerning their accuracy, and susceptibility to inertia effects. Full-field displacement measurement obtained by digital image correlation (DIC) was used in all impact experiments as a tool for visualizing and explaining the fracture process of the material in conjunction with the standard wave analysis performed in the split-Hopkinson bars.Moreover, the rate dependent behaviors of the composites were clarified with respect to the rate dependent behavior of their constituents.

Polymers are increasingly being used in engineering designs due to their favorable mechanical properties such as high specific strength, corrosive resistance, manufacturing flexibility. The understanding of the mechanical behavior of these polymers under both static and dynamic loading is critical for their optimal implementation in engineering applications. One such polymer utilized in a wide variety of applications from medical instrumentation to munitions is Polyetherimide, referred to as Ultem. This thesis characterizes both the static and dynamic mechanical behavior of Ultem 1000 through experimental methods and numerical simulations. Standard compression experiments were conducted on and MTS test frame to characterize the elastic-plastic behavior of Ultem 1000 under quasi-static conditions. The dynamic response of the material was investigated at very high strain rates using a custom built miniaturized Kolsky bar apparatus. The smaller Kolsky bar configuration was chosen over the conventional Kolsky device to increase the maximum capable strain rates and to reduce common experimental problems such as wave dispersion, friction, and stress equilibrium. Since a universal test standard for this apparatus is not available, the details of the design, construction, and experimental procedures of this device are provided. The results of the high strain rate testing revealed a bilinear relationship between the material yield stress and strain rate. This relationship was modeled using the Ree-Eyring two stage activation process equation.