ABSTRACT
An increasing interest in lightweight metallic foams for automotive, aerospace, and other applications has been observed in recent years. This is mainly due to the weight reduction that can be achieved using foams and for their mechanical energy absorption and acoustic damping capabilities. An accurate knowledge of the mechanical behavior of these materials, especially under dynamic loadings, is thus necessary. Unfortunately, metal foams and in general "soft" materials exhibit a series of peculiarities that make difficult the adoption of standard testing techniques for their high strain-rate characterization. This paper presents an innovative apparatus, where high strain-rate tests of metal foams or other soft materials can be performed by exploiting the operating principle of the Hopkinson bar methods. Using the pre-stress method to generate directly a long compression pulse (compared with traditional SHPB), a displacement of about 20 mm can be applied to the specimen with a single propagating wave, suitable for evaluating the whole stress-strain curve of medium-sized cell foams (pores of about 1-2 mm). The potential of this testing rig is shown in the characterization of a closed-cell aluminum foam, where all the above features are amply demonstrated.
ABSTRACT
A brief review of the technological advances of the Hopkinson bar technique in tension for the study of irradiated/non-irradiated nuclear materials and the development of this technology for large specimens is presented. Comparisons are made of the dynamic behaviour of non-irradiated and irradiated materials previously subjected to creep, low cycle fatigue and irradiation (2, 10 and 30 displacements per atom). In particular, complete results of the effect of irradiation on the dynamic mechanical properties of AISI304L steel, tested at 20, 400 and 550°C are presented. These high strain rate tests have been performed with a modified Hopkinson bar (MHB), installed inside a hot cell. Examples of testing large nuclear steel specimens with a very large Hopkinson bar are also shown. The results overall demonstrate the capability of the MHB to efficiently reproduce the material stress conditions in case of accidental internal and external dynamic loadings in nuclear reactors, thus contributing to the important process of their structural assessment.
ABSTRACT
In case of a terrorist bomb attack the influence and efficiency of venting areas in tubular structures like train carriages is of interest. The pressure-time function of an air blast wave resulting from a solid charge is first compared to that of a gas or dust explosion and the capability of a venting structure to fly away is assessed. Several calculations using fluid-structure interaction are performed, which show that after a certain distance from the explosion, the air blast wave inside a tubular structure becomes one-dimensional, and that the influence of venting areas parallel to the wave propagation direction is small. The pressure peak and the impulse at certain points in a tubular structure are compared for several opening sizes. The overall influence of realistic size venting devices remains moderate and their usefulness in mitigating internal explosion effects in trains is discussed.
