Wave Dispersion and Attenuation in Viscoelastic Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar

Abstract

The Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) is most commonly used facility to obtain material properties at high strain rates. Testing of soft materials using this method requires that bars made of low impedance material should be used, in order to improve signal-to-noise ratio of transmitted stress. However, utilization of such bars poses some difficulties in data processing as the wave dispersion and attenuation becomes noticeable due to their viscoelastic nature. Wave propagation coefficients of a viscoelastic pressure bar are evaluated using incident and reflected strain waves generated through impact of two different length striker bars. Two approaches are proposed for propagation coefficient measurement in this study, namely direct and waves-overlap. Using two approaches, it is found that the calculated attenuation coefficients are same, while the wave numbers are different. The difference in wave number in the case of two approaches is due to the difference in calculated phase change of incident and reflected waves, which is found as integer multiple of 2Π. Moreover, propagation coefficients calculated through different striker impacts are found different. The propagation coefficient found through long striker impact, when used for propagation response prediction of waves generated by short striker impact, resulted in high oscillations in predicted waves.