Publisher's Synopsis
The contents of these conference proceedings differ from the previously held Oxford Conferences on the Mechanical Properties at High Rates of Strain. The reason behind this was the frequency of other conferences held at the same time on the same theme. So it was decided to experiment with a modified conference format, placing the emphasis on review papers and on the stimulation of discussion in the areas reviewed. Instead of the four principal sessions of the three previous conferences, 12 review papers were invited, on topics covering all the major areas of study in impact engineering. Each review paper was followed by up to five contributed papers in the general area.;Although the main emphasis was on reviews and discussion, significant advances since the 1984 conference were noted in several areas. A general need was evident for reliable constitutive relations at high rates of strain. For metallic materials dislocation-mechanics based constitutive relations have been used in computer codes to describe, with reasonable success, the overall flow process in explosively formed projectiles and to predict the onset of plastic instability due to thermoplastic shear.;Constitutive relations which involve internal state variables, and which therefore take into account strain rate history effects, have also been developed and used in computer codes to model the impact response of simple metallic structures. Although considerable experimental data is required in the development of such constitutive relations, it is likely to give a much more accurate modelling of the impact response of metallic structures, particularly when the loading conditions are critical.;The growing interest in the use of composite and ceramic materials was recognized in sessions on the impact response of both types of material. While a great deal of work has been done in attempts to characterise the nature of impact damage in fibre-reinforced composites, the complexity of the fibre/matrix interactions has so far inhibited the development of constitutive relations which describe the damage accumulation process in such materials. However recent studies of the mechanical response of composite materials at high rates of strain have tended to concentrate attention in this direction. For ceramics and ceramic matrix composites much less is known and the papers presented are valuable in that they began to provide the background data required before a more comprehensive view can be taken.
