Lateral stress measurements in pure tungsten during shock loading

Longitudinal and lateral stresses during the shock loading of pure tungsten have been measured using manganin stress gauges. The Hugoniot has been compared to the previous work of others and shown to be in close agreement. Lateral stresses have been shown to increase behind the shock front, implying that the shear strength decreases. Whilst this is similar to results in tantalum, comparison with recovery experiments in the literature suggests that this may be due in part to a brittle failure process.