The split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) is a widely used method for analyzing the strength-strain characteristics of wood materials [1]. Experiments show that, as wood is a relatively soft material and the experimental setup is limited in size, the entire wave is not fully recorded before it is mixed with waves reflected from the ends. To be able to analyze how much energy is dissipated in a deformation process, it is required that the whole wave be recorded. In the present investigation, the pressure tail was reconstructed theoretically in the incident bar using the data from the transmission bar, which should allow for a reduction in the error in the energy of the waves.
When a deformation wave propagates along bars, part of its energy dissipates into the environment. In this study, a modification of the SHPB was proposed to calculate and analyze the amount of energy the system loses, not due to the sample. Formulas for energy and momentum equilibrium were used [2]. The influence of the length of the striker and the level of input energy were also analyzed.
In the presented experiment, all energy tails were completely recorded. This allowed for the theoretical reconstruction of the tail and a comparison with the recorded one. The pressure tail in the transmitted wave was manually shortened and replaced with a theoretical tail. The theoretical tail was created by performing an exponential curve fit with points from the tail up to the point where it had been shortened. The results show that only about 10% of the tail needs to be registered to accurately reconstruct it. When a registered wave is replaced with a reconstructed one, the resulting error in the total wave's energy value is no greater than 0.3% for a 500mm striker and 1.5% for a 250mm striker.