Influence of Specimen Thickness on the Acquisition of Al6061-T6 Material Properties Using SHPB and Verified by FEM

The Split-Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB), which is used for acquiring material properties at high strain rates (10(2)–10(4) s(−1)), requires proper specimen size selection. Under the same applied pressure, an increased S-S curve is obtained as the thickness of the specimen decreases. In this study, 1.5 t, 2.0 t, 3.0 t, 5.0 t, and 7.0 t specimens of Al6061-T6 material were tested under 1.0 bar to understand the influence of specimen thickness on the acquisition of material properties. To grasp the behavior of the SHPB test in real time, Finite Element Method (FEM) was performed using the LS-DYNA program. During the SHPB test, the impedance is increased due to the variation in the specimen area. Because of the influence of impedance, the transmitted pulse increases, and the reflected pulse decreases. As a result, the specimen is deformed in the high-strain rate region, and the S-S curve is increased as the thickness decreases. In addition, by performing the test under different pressure conditions that created similar strain rate regions, the material properties remained constant with thickness variations.