Experimental Study of the Microhardness and Microstructure of a Copper Specimen Using the Taylor Impact Test

One commonly used method for characterizing the dynamic characteristics of materials is the Taylor impact test. This method measures the dynamic yield strength of cylindrical specimens and determines material model constants required for the numerical simulation of the behavior of materials subjected to high-velocity deformation. The purpose of this work is to investigate the microhardness and microstructure of copper specimens at different impact velocities using the Taylor impact test. This paper describes experiments performed on copper specimens (OFHC 99.9%, M1) using a single-stage light-gas gun with impact velocities in the range of 150–450 m/s. After impact, the specimens were cut along the symmetry axis to measure the microhardness and the grain size of the microstructure. Microhardness in the entire area exceeded the initial value for all investigated velocities. The averaged microhardness curves were obtained for each specimen to identify four deformation zones and determine their dimensions depending on the impact velocity. The average grain size in the entire deformed specimen became smaller than in the starting specimen. The study of the microstructure of the specimens has shown that the grain size distribution corresponds to the four deformation zones in the copper specimens.