Ductile damage evolution in high purity copper taylor impact test

Recently, the continuum damage mechanics model proposed by Bonora (Eng. Fract. Mech. 58, 1997) has been updated to account for stress triaxiality effect on model parameters, (Bonora et al., AIP Conf. Proc. 1195, 2009). This model enhancement allows to predict ductile damage initiation under varying stress states (uniaxial stress, uniaxial strain, and complex load paths) and dynamic loading conditions. In this work, the model has been used to investigate ductile damage developments in Taylor anvil and symmetric Taylor impact (rod-on-rod) configuration. Although the two configurations are equivalent for right scaled impact velocities, experimental evidences show that when ductile damage occurs in rod-on-rod not necessarily also develops in Taylor anvil impact. It has been found that, in the two impact configurations, the stress triaxiality builds up differently with plastic strain leading to different conditions for ductile damage initiation. Taylor impact tests have been designed and performed with the gas-gun facility at the University of Cassino. Damage investigation results obtained on recovered samples have been compared with rod-on-rod data reported in the literature and used to validate the proposed model predictions