High-strain rate Brazilian testing of an explosive simulant using speckle metrology

The application of high-speed photography and image correlation has allowed dynamic Brazilian tests to be carried out using the split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) on PBS9501, an explosive simulant. The essential features of low-rate Brazilian tests are found to occur in the high-rate experiments, with the samples reaching equilibrium quickly and remaining in equilibrium throughout the experiment. The advantage of the approach described here is the ability to make tensile stress/strain measurements in the high-strain rate regime using a compression Hopkinson bar. This allows smaller sample sizes, making testing of expensive or dangerous materials easier, while expanding the capabilities of the compression bar.