High strain rate compression testing of glass fibre reinforced polypropylene

Blast Impact and Survivability Research Unit, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa

^a e-mail: reuben.govender@uct.ac.za

Abstract

This paper details an investigation of the high strain rate compression testing of GFPP with the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) in the through-thickness and in-plane directions. GFPP posed challenges to SHPB testing as it fails at relatively high stresses, while having relatively low moduli and hence mechanical impedance. The modifications to specimen geometry and incident pulse shaping in order to gather valid test results, where specimen equilibrium was achieved for SHPB tests on GFPP are presented. In addition to conventional SHPB tests to failure, SHPB experiments were designed to achieve specimen equilibration at small strains, which permitted the capture of high strain rate elastic modulus data. The strain rate dependency of GFPP’s failure strengths in the in-plane and through-thickness direction is modelled using a logarithmic law.