Instron has joined a new international group that is seeking to develop a best practice guide and test standards specifically for testing composites at high-strain rates.

As the automotive industry seeks ever-more-urgently to embrace composites, there is an increasing demand for testing composite material behavior at high-strain rates. The need for detailed data to inform crash simulation models first drove a renewed demand for equipment over the last 3 years, and now there is a need for international standardization in methodologies and data handling. The group’s aim is to facilitate generation and exchange of reliable and comparable test data in this highly challenging area.

The working group has been coordinated by the University of Dayton Research Institute, and currently composes about 20 organizations including major automotive manufacturers, composite materials producers, test houses, and research institutes. As a world leader in high-rate servohydraulic testing systems, the dynamic systems team at Instron are very pleased to share their expertise with this initiative that will make a tangible difference to the industry. Similarly, Instron CEAST will be contributing to work on drop-weight based techniques for high rate testing.

The working group is looking for more European contributors especially, but we would strongly encourage all our customers with expertise in this area to join us in supporting the project. Please feel free to contact Instron applications specialist, Dr. Peter Bailey, if you would like to know more.