Determination of the Hugoniot elastic limits of differently treated 2024 Al specimens

Abstract

Commercial Manganin gauges were used in a series of planar impact experiments in order to determine the Hugoniot elastic limits (HEL) of differently heat-treated 2024 aluminium samples. The gauges were used in an indirect configuration by which they were embedded in a soft backing material (polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) in this case) at the back surface of the specimen. The resulting HEL values were compared with the corresponding yield stress values from uniaxial tension tests. It is found that the simple elastic relation between yield in uniaxial strain and uniaxial stress is obeyed. An additional measurement of the HEL of a pressurised sample also conforms with this simple relation.