Hopkinson Bar Studies of a PBX Simulant

A Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar system was equipped with an environmental chamber for high and low temperature studies of a HTPB/sugar propellant simulant. Experiments were carried out, at a strain rate of $\sim $1600s$^{-1}$, to characterise the material response above and below the glass transition temperature. Other techniques were deployed, including high-speed photography with Digital Image Cross-Correlation analysis for flow visualisation, and a line-laser occlusion method, to determine the dynamic Poisson's ratio. This paper outlines the current state of research and details the important observations to date.