Testing of High‐Strength Ceramics with the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar

The split Hopkinson pressure bar was used to study the failure of a high‐strength alumina at strain rates on the order of 103 s‐1. There appears to be a critical strain rate above which the traditional method of using the transmitter bar signal to calculate the stress in the specimen is no longer valid. To compute the correct stress in the specimen it was necessary to use the strain signal from a gage mounted directly on the specimen. Copyright © 1993, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserve