Instrumentation to control strain rate for materials undergoing plastic flow

An instrument is described which controls the head velocity and, therefore, the strain rate of specimens tested in electromechanical universal testing machines. Within the available speed limits of these machines, a predetermined strain rate is achieved by automatic adjustment of a variable resistance in the speed-control circuit. This adjustment is achieved by coupling a potentiometer to the crosshead movement with a cam. An exact mathematical solution is derived for general cam profiles which give either nondecreasing or nonincreasing strain rates. Numerical results are presented for cams which achieve constant true strain rate in tensile and compression testing. For these cases, instrument calibration curves and tensile stress-strain curves for iron at room temperature are presented.