Influence of some test parameters on specimen loading determination methods in instrumented Charpy impact tests

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the influence of some test parameters on impact load and specimen displacement measurements in instrumented Charpy impact tests. As impact material behaviour is a multi-parameter problem, design of experiment method is used in order to organise test campaign and to assess the most influence variables. On one side, it is shown that procedures based on tup load measurement are strongly affected by test parameter setting. On the other side, methods based on specimen displacement estimation appear to be a simplest way due to limited dynamic effects on the sample. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.