Adiabatic shear failure of the titanium alloy TI6Al4V under biaxial dynamic compression/shear loading.

In order to study the propensity of metallic materials to adiabatic shear failure under multiaxial stresses a new testing method was developed to investigate the dynamic failure behaviour under combined compression/shear loading. The combined simultaneous loading is applied by a drop weight hammer to a cylindrical specimen whose axis is inclined to the hammer axis. The testing results on the titanium alloy Ti6A14V show that the onset of an adiabatic shear failure is promoted strongly even under small amounts of a shear component to the main compression stress.