Shear strength measurements in a tungsten alloy during shock loading

Lateral stress measurements in a tungsten alloy, in combination with known Hugoniot data, have been used to find the shear strength of this material, and its variation with longitudinal shock stress, up to 14 GPa. Results sho w that the shear strength increases significantly with increasing stress. P rior to this work, there has been disagreement in the literature on the eff ect of shock stress on the shear strength of tungsten and its alloys. The p resent work agrees with the data obtained by Zhou and Clifton [J. Appl. Mec h. 64, 487 (1997)] who used pressure shear. However, the range of stresses studied has been greatly extended. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)05124-5].