Dynamic strength and fragmentation of silicon carbide

Data obtained in the course of my masters thesis research. Quasi-static and dynamic compression experimental data, fragment size data, DIC data. Not included are the fragment image sets, as their total file size is >500 gb.

The uniaxial compressive response of two formulations of silicon carbide, SiC-N and SiC-X1, have been investigated at quasi-static rates, using a hydraulic load frame, and dynamic rates, using a Kolsky bar system. The loading and failure have been investigated with high-speed imaging and Digital Image Correlation (DIC). The dynamic fragments from individual experiments of each formulation have been imaged and analyzed. The results from the compression experiments suggest that SiC-N and SiC-X1 have statistically comparable strengths at both quasi-static and dynamic rates. The observed strengths are lower than previously reported strengths, potentially due to higher stress concentrations caused by sample geometry and comparably higher stress rates. Nevertheless, the results from the high-speed imaging show that the failure mode of SiC-N matches that of previous experiments, and that the SiC-N fragment morphology is equivalent to the reported data from previous experiments. The high-speed imaging also shows that SiC-N and SiC-X1 have analogous failure modes. The DIC results, obtained from the imaging, have comparable strain rates to the experimentally derived rates, suggesting that the DIC method is providing an accurate and representative approximation. The DIC results show strain concentrations near the points of failure, which corroborates the failure mode observations, and supports the supposition that the comparatively lower strength results are due to sample geometry and higher rate-induced stress concentrations. The results from the fragment analysis of SiC-N show a close match to previously reported SiC-N fragment data, while the results for SiC-X1 show that the fragment size is shifted towards finer fragments when compared to SiC-N.