Spall strength of a mild carbon steel: Effects of tensile stress history and shock-induced microstructure

Abstract The effects of loading on spall strength of a mild steel are investigated systematically under the flat-top impact loading, including the effect of tensile stress history and the effect of shock-induced microstructure. Peak stress, strain rate, pulse duration, spall strength and tensile stress history are obtained directly or indirectly from free-surface velocity measurements, and the recovered samples are characterized with electron backscatter diffraction analysis. For different tensile stress histories, spall strength depends on peak stress or strain rate, depending whether spall occurs on the plateau or rising edge of a tensile pulse. Pulse duration has an effect on whether spall occurs (incipient spallation) but not spall strength. Low shock stresses induce small microstructure change (dislocations) which has weak effects on nucleation and propagation of brittle cleavage cracks, while high shock stresses lead to deformation twins (in addition to dislocations) which act as the source of crack nucleation. A model is proposed to predict the spall strength of the mild steel under arbitrary loading conditions (peak stress below the phase transition).