Experimental investigation of the behaviour of tungsten and molybdenum alloys at high strain-rate and temperature

The introduction in recent years of new, extremely energetic particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) gives impulse to the development and testing of refractory metals and alloys based on molybdenum and tungsten to be used as structural materials. In this perspective, in this work the experimental results of a tests campaign on Inermet® IT180 and pure Molybdenum (sintered by two different producers) are presented. The investigation of the mechanical behaviour was performed in tension varying the strain-rates, the temperatures and both of them. Overall six orders of magnitude in strain-rate (between 10−3 and 103 s−1) were covered, starting from quasi-static up to high dynamic loading conditions. The high strain-rate tests were performed using a direct Hopkinson Bar setup. Both in quasi-static and high strain-rate conditions, the heating of the specimens was obtained with an induction coil system, controlled in feedback loop, based on measurements from thermocouples directly welded on the specimen. The temperature range varied between 25 and 1000°C. The experimental data were, finally, used to extract the parameters of the Zerilli-Armstrong model used to reproduce the mechanical behaviour of the investigated materials.