Abstract
A detailed experimental study was conducted in designing cylindrical pulse shapers for testing various types of materials using split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) test setup. Copper-182 alloy and annealed C11000 was used as pulse shaper materials and six different types of pulse shapers for each case with their thickness to diameter (t/d) ratios ranging from 0.23 to 0.51 were used. Six types of materials namely Aluminum 6061-T6, Acrylic (Plexiglas), Ultra High Temperature Glass-Mica Ceramic (Macor), Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE), polyurethane and polyurethane syntactic foam were considered for testing. Inertial effects of pulse shapers play an important role in determining stress equilibrium in the specimen. The effect of t/d ratio of the pulse shaper on the force equilibrium condition at the specimen ends for above materials at a strainrate regime of 1000-2000/s was discussed and better pulse shapers for above materials were recommended