Shear punch tests performed using a new low compliance test fixture

Based on a recent finite element analysis (FEA) study performed on the shear punch test technique, it was suggested that compliance in a test frame and fixturing which is quite acceptable for uniaxial tensile tests, is much too large for shear punch tests. The FEA study suggested that this relatively large compliance was masking both the true yield point and the shape of the load versus displacement trace obtained in shear punch tests. The knowledge gained from the FEA study was used to design a new shear punch test fixture which more directly measures punch tip displacement. The design of this fixture, the traces obtained from this fixture, and the correlation between uniaxial yield stress and shear yield stress obtained using this fixture are presented here. In general, traces obtained from the new fixture contain much less compliance resulting in a trace shape which is more similar in appearance to a corresponding uniaxial tensile trace. Due to the more direct measurement of displacement, it was possible to measure yield stress at an offset shear strain in a manner analogous to yield stress measurement in a uniaxial tensile test. The correlation between shear yield and uniaxial yield was altered by this new yield measurement technique, but the new correlation was not as greatly improved as was suggested would occur from the FEA study.