Using reverberation techniques to study the properties of shock loaded soda-lime glass

A series of plate impact experiments on soda-lime glass specimens was performed in order to probe the properties of the glass behind the failure wave front. Shock stresses in the range of 2-6 GPa were induced in the glass specimens by impacting them with thick brass impactors. Stress histories, at the back of the specimens, were recorded using commercial manganin gauges, which were backed by thick plexiglass disks. The gauges followed the shock and release reverberations in the glass resulting from the mismatch of brass and plexiglass on each side of the glass specimen. By analyzing the height and duration of these reverberations we can determine several important features of the glass behind the fracture wave front