Measurement of mechanical properties of St 37 material at high strain rates using a split hopkinson pressure bar

Abstract

The dynamic mechanical properties of a material are important keys to investigate the impact characteristic of a structure such as a crash box. For some materials, the stress-strain relationships at high strain rate loadings are different than that at the static condition. These mechanical properties depend on the strain rate of the loadings, and hence an appropriate testing technique is required to measure them. To measure the mechanical properties of a material at high strain rates, ranging from 500 s<sup>-1</sup> to 10000 s<sup>-1</sup>, a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar is commonly used. In the measurements, strain pulses are generated in the bars system, and pulses being reflected and transmitted by a test specimen in the bar system are measured. The stress-strain curves as the material properties of the test specimen are obtained by processing the measured reflected and transmitted pulses. This paper presents the measurements of the mechanical properties of St 37 mild steel at several strain rates using a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar. The stress-strain curves obtained in the measurement were curve fitted using the Power Law. The results show that the strength of St 37 material increases as the strain rate increases.