Experimental study of low amplitude, long-duration mechanical loading of reactive materials

Studies of the low amplitude, long-duration mechanical loading of reactive materials rely very heavily on the experimental data in general and in particular on the data obtained from gauges placed within the experimental test sample to measure accurately the local changes of parameters of the investigated material. For a complete description of these changes taking place in a dynamically loaded material one would like to know both the spatial and the temporal resolution of pressure, temperature, volume, wave and mass velocity. However, temperature and volume are not easily attainable. Therefore, most of the in-situ work is limited to measurements of pressure and both wave and mass velocities. Various types of these gauges will be discussed and their records will be illustrated. Some of these gauges have limitations but are better suited for particular applications than others. These aspects will also be discussed. Main limitation of most in-situ gauges is that they are built for one-dimensional application. However, some work is being done to develop two-dimensional gauges. This work will also be briefly discussed. While these experiments are necessary to validate theoretical models of the phenomenon, they can also provide sufficient amount of data to yield complete information on material characteristics more » such as its equation of state (EOS), its phase change under certain loads and its sensitivity to shock loading. Processing of these data to get important information on the behavior of both reactive and non-reactive materials will also be demonstrated. « less