The design and development of a new method for performing fracture toughness testsunder impulsive loadings using explosives is presented. The experimental set-up wascomplemented with pressure transducers and strain gauges in order to measure,respectively, the blast wave that reached the specimen and the loading history.Fracture toughness tests on a 7017-T73 aluminium alloy were carried out by usingthis device under impulsive loadings. Previous studies reported that such aluminiumalloy had very little strain rate sensitivity, which made it an ideal candidate forcomparison at different loading rates. The fracture-initiation toughness values of the7017-T73 aluminium alloy obtained at impulsive loadings did not exhibit asignificant variation from the cases studied at lower loading rates. Therefore, themethod and device developed for measuring the dynamic fracture-initiation toughnessunder impulsive loadings was considered suitable for such a purpose.
展开▼
