First of all, I would like to thank you all for the response. I apologize for the much delayed reply.
In what follows, I will list a few references about
dynamic behaviors of materials at large and the testing techniques. Of
course I will definitely omit some important books or papers since after
all I am more a materials scientist. Therefore, if you know of know of
any good references, please let us know.
The response of structural materials to external mechanical load may strongly depend on the rate at which the load is imposed. For example, a specimen may exhibit ductile fracture if loaded at quasi-static rate (strain rate below 1.0/s), but may show brittle fracture under impact (high-rate) loading. According to the classic monograph of Professor Marc Meyers, if the strain rate is above 100/s, it can be put into the high-strain rate regime. The mechanical behavior of structural materials under such loading conditions is dubbed dynamic.