A drop-weight high-speed tensile testing instrument

A drop-weight high-speed tensile testing instrument was developed, in which the acting force and the specimen elongation can be obtained by measuring the displacement of the drop-weight by means of an opto-electronic transducer. The system was used to obtain the flow curves of AA5754 at strain rates up to 2,200 s−1. The flow curves were verified with the help of finite element calculations by comparing the displacement and full-field strain measurement results. The developed instrument provides satisfying flow curves, in addition to being simple and cheap.