Shear strength and shear failure, overview of testing and behavior of ductile metals

Shear dominated states of loading are present in many industrial applications and typical impact processes. The paper gives a review of the well known methods for measuring the high strain rate shear and mixed mode behavior of ductile metals. The testing methods are subdivided into two groups. The first one is to measure the flow behavior under shearing conditions. The second group refers to testing methods for the failure behavior at shear or shear dominated loading states. The main focus is on the measurement of these data at very high strain rates with some of our own, newly developed testing devices. The investigated methods utilize the following specimen geometries Hat-, compression/shear-, tension/shear-, shear/ compression-, planar double notched shear-, torsion- and planar torsion shear specimens. The advantages and disadvantages of all presented methods and FEM simulations are compared with the corresponding experimental results. Since no geometry can fulfill all demands, the methods are classified according to their optimal applications.