High-strain-rate pressure-shear recovery: a new experimental techniqu

A new experimental technique is presented that allows for the recovery of a sample that has been subjected to a single well-characterized high-rate shear loading and a single well-characterized longitudinal pulse within a pressure- shear plate impact con®guration. Pressure-shear plate impact experiments are traditionally used to investigate the behavior of materials under conditions of very high rate (105±106 s ÿ1) simple shearing under high hydrostatic pressures. The new techniqueÐknown as High-Strain-Rate Pressure-Shear Recovery or HSRPSRÐis valuable for the investigation of microstructural in¯uences on the plastic ¯ow of materials under these conditions. Several successful experiments have been performed at strain rates of 105 s ÿ1 using the HSRPSR technique. The recovered specimens are compared with specimens obtained after deformation within conventional pressure-shear plate impact experiments. As an example of the utility of this recovery technique, the paper presents the microstructural characterization of specimens of a-titanium after deformation at strain rates of 105 s ÿ1 and under superimposed hydrostatic pressures of several GP