More on commercial carbon resistors as low pressure gauges

Commercial carbon resistors have been used for over 30 years as low pressure gauges in dynamic experiments. Their low-cost, robust performance and high piezoresistivity are some of their main advantages. On the other hand, there are large differences between the various calibration curves published by these workers. This is mainly due to the fact that different resistors were used under various loading conditions. In the work presented here, we focus on several issues concerning the use of commercial carbon resistors as well-calibrated dynamic pressure gauges. In particular, we explore the question of reproducibility of their response, its strain sensitivity, and the issue of hysteresis upon stress unloading. These issues are examined through a series of plate impact experiments. We also present our calibration results for 10 Ω resistors (image), in the pressure range of 0–8.0 GPa, which were chosen as our pressure gauges for this range.