Extended application of Hopkinson bar technique

Hopkinson pressure bar has been widely used to determine mechanical behavior of materials under high strain rates. It has provided great foundation to the safety and reliability design of materials and structures under impact loading. As an efficient loading and test system, it has also been widely used in many other fields, such as: (1) determination of material behavior under high strain rate and high temperature by using a synchronal assembly system; (2) recovery test with single pulse loading capacity and its application in revolution of damage under dynamic loading; (3) evaluation of dynamic fracture toughness; (4) calibration of acceleration transducer in the range from 10⁴ g to 2 × 10⁵ g. Not only the principles and testing methods of these applications are demonstrated, but also some test results are introduced. It will be helpful to make the progress in the wider use of Hopkinson bar in the future.