Split Hopkinson Pressure Bars supplier?

There is no company supplying commercial Hopkinson bar, as I know. You may contact Prof. Shisheng Hu (sshu@ustc.edu.cn) at University of Science and Technology of China. He was selling the apparatus in China.

If you have a design in mind, Physics Applications Inc. (  http://www.physicsapplications.com/   ) can probably build one (they did for us in the past). But you will need to know what you want. They specialize in gas guns, not SHPBs.

Keep in mind that a SHPB is not a "one size fits all" test rig for high strain rate testing. Depending on the materials you are planning on testing, the bars needed for testing can change substantially in diameter and length. If you approach an external contractor to build a SHPB facility for you, I would advise allowing for a range of bar diameters. make the support bed as long as you can fit into your lab. Also be quite specific about the gas gun (launcher) - most of the commercial gas guns I have seem are for projectile impact /penetration (V ~ hundreds of m/s) whereas for a SHPB the striker velocity is typically < 25 m/s.

If you are a mechanical / materials testing facility the area where a external contractor will be of most use will be the data capture system for the strain gauges on the HPB. Also make sure the amplifiers you use for the strain gauge bridges have sufficient bandwidth - anything less than 50kHz is going to distort HPB signals. Try to get amps with bandwidth of 100kHz minimum, and A/D capture card with sampling rate of about 5MHz, 12 bit resolution.  

Luming,

Two generations ago (1950's) the Southwest Research Institute (www.swri.org) marketed the split Hopkinson pressure bar.  They may still have a few left in their warehouse.

Bill

Hey all,

I'm in the process of designing and building one. I've found it very hard to source manufacturers/suppliers for the various aspects of this rig. We are designing for very high strain rates, and it seems impossible to find bars made out of a material that can withstand the high stresses.

The instrumentation is also very specialist, but Reuben Govender put my mind at ease, I was looking at amplifiers for the strain gages with a few megahertz bandwidth...i guess i'll try these lower bandwidth amps (cheaper and easier to find).

The firing system is also a major headache.

Luming, what exactly are you after? what strain rates etc?