Mechanical Response of Five Metals at Strain Rates Approaching 100 k/s

Author(s):

Daniel Casem and Timothy Walter

Abstract:

Stress–strain curves were measured for five materials: 6061-T6511 aluminum, ETP copper, AZ31B-TP magnesium, 17-4 PH 900 stainless steel, and 702 zirconium. The experiments were all room-temperature uniaxial stress compression, using either a conventional load frame (strain rate of 0.0014/s) or a variety of miniature Hopkinson/pressure bar techniques (rates from 3000 to 100,000/s). A notable finding is that none of the materials exhibit a strong enhanced strain-rate sensitivity at the higher strain rates; the flow stresses for all materials increase linearly with the logarithm of strain rate over the ranges investigated. Vickers hardness measurements are also given for each material.