PSI - Issue 39

Mario Álvarez-Blanco et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 39 (2022) 379–386 Author name / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2021) 000–000

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2.2. Uniaxial tensile test The experimental tests were carried out in the universal testing machine Instron 3366, using the 5 kN and 10 kN load cells. Also, the three-dimensional DIC technique has been applied through the software MultiDIC developed by Solav et al. (2018). Several pictures have been taken at different loads and a speckled region of interest has been tracked to analyse the displacement field during the test. For the uniaxial tensile tests, samples were positioned between the grips according to UNE-EN ISO 527 (2012). The clip-on extensometer Instron 2630-107 was implemented to measure the strain before the fracture more accurately. The uniaxial test setup (without the DIC instrumentation) is shown in Fig. 3. In order to analyse the strain rate influence on the mechanical behaviour of the material, tests were run at 1 mm/min and 50 mm/min.

Fig. 3. Uniaxial tensile test setup.

2.3. Three-point bending test Regarding the three-point bending test, a special tool with adjustable supports was necessary. The support separation and support diameter were stablished following the UNE-EN ISO 178 (2011), with values of 64 mm and 10 mm, respectively. Due to material anisotropy, the bending tests were carried out on two different orientations of the prismatic samples: crack growth over plane XY and plane XZ (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Three-point bending test setup: plane XY orientation (left); plane XZ orientation (right).