Material characterisation using high-temperature Split Hopkinson pressure bar

In order to characterise the mechanical response of materials in manufacturing processes, such as wire and bar rolling involving very high strain rates, temperatures and level of straining, an experimental device is presented. The device is suitable for testing at strain rates up to approximately 4000 s−1, temperatures up to 1200 °C (≈1500 K) and strains around 0.5. It is based on the classical Split Hopkinson pressure bar and is complemented with an inductive heating source for achieving requested temperatures. By keeping the specimen separated from the Hopkinson bars just until an instant before impact (50 ms) considerable cooling and temperature gradients in the specimen are avoided. Three steel grades, two stainless steels and a high-speed steel, were tested. Four different material models whose parameters were fitted to the obtained experimental data were used for mechanical characterisation: two empirically based and two physically based. Overall, one of the physically based models showed the best agreement between experimental results and the predicted flow stresses.