Investigation of dynamic response of brittle materials under high-rate loading

In this paper the dynamic behaviour of brittle materials subjected to high-rate loading is investigated. Taking the effect of damage into account, a direct, explicit and quantitative method is developed to determine the average fragment size generated by crack tension with a constant strain rate. The theoretical predictions of the fragment size are compared with the experimental data, and it is found that the predicted values agree reasonably well with the test results. Furthermore, the dependence of the throw velocity on the strain rate is discussed. The value of the throw velocity increases with the increment of the strain rate. Finally, the properties of the fragmentation in a single borehole blasting experiment are numerically simulated.