The temperature and strain rate significantly affect the ballistic performance of UHMWPE, but the deformation of UHMWPE under thermo-mechanical coupling has been rarely studied. To investigate the influences of the temperature and the strain rate on the mechanical properties of UHMWPE, a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) apparatus was used to conduct uniaxial compression experiments on UHMWPE. The stress–strain curves of UHMWPE were obtained at temperatures of 20–100 °C and strain rates of 1300–4300 s⁻¹. Based on the experimental results, the UHMWPE belongs to viscoelastic–plastic material, and a hardening effect occurs once UHMWPE enters the plastic zone. By comparing the stress–strain curves at different temperatures and strain rates, it was found that UHMWPE exhibits strain rate strengthening and temperature softening effects. By modifying the Sherwood–Frost model, a constitutive model was established to describe the dynamic mechanical properties of UHMWPE at different temperatures. The results calculated using the constitutive model were in good agreement with the experimental data. This study provides a reference for the design of UHMWPE as a ballistic-resistant material.

This paper experimentally investigates the blast-resistant characteristics of hybrid fiber-reinforced concrete (HFRC) panels by contact detonation tests. The control specimen of plain concrete, polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and steel fiber-reinforced concrete were prepared and tested for characterization in contrast with PP-Steel HFRC and PVA-Steel HFRC. The sequent contact detonation tests were conducted with panel damage recorded and measured. Damaged HFRC panels were further comparatively analyzed whereby the blast-resistance performance was quantitively assessed via damage coefficient and blast-resistant coefficient. For both PP-Steel and PVA-Steel HFRC, the best blast-resistant performance was achieved at around 1.5% steel + 0.5% PP-fiber hybrid. Finally, the fiber-hybrid effect index was introduced to evaluate the hybrid effect on the explosion-resistance performance of HFRC panels. It revealed that neither PP-fiber or PVA-fiber provide positive hybrid effect on blast-resistant improvement of HFRC panels.

The mechanical properties of polyethylene (PE) materials are greatly influenced by their molecular structures, environmental temperature, and strain rate. In this study, static and dynamic compression tests were performed on two semicrystalline PE materials—ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The stress–strain curves of HDPE and UHMWPE under uniaxial compression at temperatures of −40–120 °C and strain rates of 0.001–5500 s⁻¹ were obtained. The research findings suggest that both the UHMWPE and HDPE showed significant strain rate-strengthening effect and temperature-softening effect. In particular, HDPE exhibited better compression resistance and high-temperature resistance. The relationships between the yield stress and temperature and between the yield stress and strain rate for both materials were fitted, and the Cowper–Symonds constitutive model was built while considering the temperature effect. The parameters of the constitutive model were obtained and input into LS-DYNA software to simulate the dynamic compression process of HDPE. The simulation result was consistent with the test result, validating the accuracy of the constitutive parameters.

To study the dynamic plastic properties of high-purity molybdenum materials at high temperature and high strain rate, we designed tests to compare the mechanical behaviour of two high-purity molybdenum materials with different purities and two with different processing deformation conditions under dynamic impact compression in the temperature range of 297–1273 K. We analysed the molybdenum materials’ sensitivities to the strain-hardening effect, strain rate-strengthening effect, and temperature-softening effect as well as the comprehensive response to the combined effect of the strain rate and temperature, the adiabatic impact process, and the microstructure at high temperature and high strain rate. Furthermore, based on a modified Johnson–Cook constitutive model, we quantitatively analysed the flow stresses in these materials. The calculation results strongly agree with the test results. Our findings indicate that the high-purity molybdenum materials show consistent sensitivity to the combined effect of strain rate and temperature regarding the dynamic plastic properties. The materials with higher purity are less sensitive to the combined effect of the strain rate and temperature, and those with less processing deformation experience more pronounced strain-hardening effects. Under high strain rate at room temperature, these materials are highly susceptible to impact embrittlement and decreases in dynamic plastic properties due to intergranular fracture in the internal microstructure. However, increasing the impact environment temperature can significantly improve their plastic properties. The higher the temperature, the better the plastic properties and the higher the impact toughness.

Using a split-Hopkinson pressure bar test instrument with a temperature control device, in this work, silicone rubber was tested at different temperatures (−40 °C–200 °C) and different strain rates (1.2 × 10³ s⁻¹–7.2 × 10³ s⁻¹). The results showed that the dynamic mechanical properties of silicone rubber were strain-rate sensitive at different temperatures and the yield strength of the silicone rubber increased with an increase in the strain rate. At a higher strain rate, silicone rubber showed temperature sensitivity. With a decrease in the strain rate, the influence of temperature on silicone rubber gradually decreased. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis showed that silicone rubber had good thermal stability at high temperatures. When the temperature was as low as −40 °C, the silicone rubber underwent a glass transition, showing the characteristics of brittle materials.