Experimental investigation of dynamic punch tests on isotropic and composite materials

An experimental investigation is conducted on the two-dimensional punch problem for isotropic materials and unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite materials under quasi-static and impact loading. Singular stresses are generated in the specimen near the punch corners, and the stress intensity factor K-I is introduced to describe the singular stress field. Laser interferometry is used to measure in-plane stresses (transmission mode) and out-of-plane displacements (reflection mode) and then estimate the stress intensity factor. In the dynamic case, a high-speed photography technique was employed to capture the transient response of the specimen and measure K(t) just after the impact. In all the cases, a good agreement between the measurements of K and theoretical predictions was found.