Strength and failure characterisation and behaviour under impact loading

An overview is given of the present state of the art of high rate mechanical testing including mono, biaxial and triaxial loading states at Chemnitz. This includes strength, deformability and failure aspects of a tool steel for high speed cutting (HSC)- simulation at high strain rates and enhanced temperatures, a compression strength-rate dependence up to epsilon = 10(5) s(-1) and a presentation of a new constitutive equation describing adiabatic shear failure strain as a function of loading state, strain rate and temperature. Furthermore a new testing procedure is named to include the biaxial hydrostatic pressure influence on adiabatic shear failure initiation.