The Effect of Specimen Size on the Dynamic Compressive Behaviour of Magnesium Alloy AZ31B

Abstract

The specimen size has always been crucial in defining the materials behaviour and becomes more important when materials are subjected to high rates of loadings. In the current study, the effect of specimen size on the mechanical behaviour of AZ31B alloy has been investigated under dynamic compression using the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) and results are presented. Specimens were made in different sizes with fixed slenderness ratio (l/d) of 0.5 and with bar to specimen diameter ratio varying between 0.47 and 0.79. When deformed at the same strain rate 1500±50s-1, the smaller specimens give higher stresses and smaller strains. The smaller size specimens give more uniform strain rate as compared to the larger size specimens. However, some spurious oscillations are observed in the stress-strain curves for smaller size specimens. The alloy shows higher hardening behavior for larger size specimen; the hardening exponent n is larger for larger size specimens.