2
and is cross-correlated to extract displacement fields across
the entire sample surface13,14. Therefore, a single experi-
ment yields thousands of displacement measurements over
the entire field of view, with sub-pixel accuracy, which can
be further used to obtain the velocity, acceleration, and strain
fields15,16. While DIC is well-suited for quasi-static experi-
ments, advances in high-speed imaging capabilities have en-
abled DIC in the dynamic regime. For example, high-speed
imaging in conjunction with two-dimensional DIC was uti-
lized to study the dynamic micro- to macro-scale deformation
behavior of materials17–21. Recently, Rubino et al.16 com-
bined high-speed photography, and 2D DIC to characterize
deformation fields around dynamically propagating shear rup-
tures in laboratory earthquake experiments. In addition to in-
plane deformation fields, out-of-plane deformation can be re-
solved using two cameras and high-speed three-dimensional
(stereo) digital image correlation, which is used in blast, bal-
listic and low velocity impact applications. For instance, Ti-
wari et al.22 conducted 3D DIC to measure the deformation
of aluminum plates subjected to blast loading, while work by
Jannotti et al.23 investigated anisotropic ballistic response of
rolled AZ31B magnesium plates. Additionally, Gupta et al.24
conducted 3D DIC to understand the physical processes as-
sociated with the implosion of cylindrical tubes submerged
underwater. Pankow et al.25 implemented stereo DIC with a
single camera by using a series of mirrors to split the image
into two different views and examined the out-of-plane flexu-
ral response of a dynamically loaded thin aluminum plate. In
these studies, the authors use the extracted full-field displace-
ment and strain field to analyze the deformation mechanisms
at time scales ranging from 25 −150 µs. Overall, previous
impact studies using full-field measurements have focused on
longer time scale behavior of materials compared to the shock
compression behavior where the total event duration is typi-
cally smaller than 5 µs.
The present study extends the applications of high speed
3D DIC to plate impact experiments for the first time to under-
stand material behavior in the shock regime (strain rates >106
s−1). In Section II, details of the experimental setup, accuracy
and resolution of measured data, and the methodology of post-
processing the acquired data are discussed. In Section III, the
feasibility of the developed experimental setup for measuring
full-field free surface velocity measurements and is first val-
idated against point-wise PDV measurements in normal and
pressure-shear plate impact experiments. In Section IV, con-
cluding remarks are presented and potential future directions
are discussed.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Experimental Setup
In this study, plate impact experiments were conducted us-
ing a powder gun facility at Caltech. Four materials, polycar-
bonate (PC), tungsten carbide (WC), Y-cut quartz, and D2 tool
steel, were investigated in different experimental configura-
tions to demonstrate the reliability, advantage, and robustness
of the high-speed stereo (3D) DIC for measuring full-field free
surface velocities in plate impact experiments. The schematic
of the experimental setup with high-speed imaging-based full-
field diagnostics is shown in Fig. 1a. Also, the images of
the stereo high speed imaging DIC setup and the components
inside the vacuum chamber are shown in Fig. 1b. Samples
were shocked using the 38.7 mm slotted powder gun capa-
ble of launching projectiles at velocities ranging from 0.2-1.5
km/s. Two Hyper Vision HPV-X2 high-speed cameras (Shi-
madzu, Kyoto, Japan) capable of capturing 5 million frames/s
at full resolution (400 ×250 pixel2) and 10 million frames/s
at half resolution (400 ×250 pixel2, where missing pixels are
interpolated) were used to capture the image of the free sur-
face, see Fig. 1a. These cameras were placed at a stereo an-
gle between 15◦−16◦and were calibrated by capturing the
image of the standard laser engraved calibration grids (Corre-
lated Solutions Inc., Columbia, SC), to facilitate stereo DIC
measurement14. A total of 45 image pairs were collected by
tilting and rotating the calibration grid within the field of view
of both the cameras. It was ensured that the images were
within the depth of field of the imaging system to obtain accu-
rate calibration of the stereo camera system. The image of the
camera arrangement and a typical calibration grid used for cal-
ibration are shown in Fig. 1a. The images of the rear surface
of the sample were observed through a large mirror (50 mm
× 100 mm) arranged at 45◦with respect to the loading direc-
tion. A CAVILUX Smart laser (Cavitar, Tampere, Finland),
which provides high-speed incoherent laser (wavelength, 640
nm) pulses as short as 10 ns, was used to illuminate the sample
during loading. The short duration laser pulses avoid blurring
due to the transients in the high-speed impact experiments.
These laser pulses were synchronized with the exposure of
the camera sensor during the image acquisition. An image of
the complete target assembly, mirrors, and illumination using
laser inside the vacuum chamber is shown in the Fig. 1b. Im-
pact velocities of the experiments were measured using Pho-
tonic Doppler velocimetry6(PDV). The PDV probe was at-
tached to the target holder and the optical return was checked
during the target alignment. In the pressure shear plate impact
experiment, a heterodyne PDV was used to simultaneously
measure normal and transverse velocities9.
The materials used in this study were obtained from various
commercial vendors. Polycarbonate and D2 tool steel mate-
rials were procured from McMaster-Carr (Los Angeles, CA)
while the tungsten carbide was acquired from Basic Carbide
Corporation (Lowber, PA), ARMCO iron from AK Steel In-
ternational (Breda, The Netherlands), and Y-cut quartz from
University Wafer (South Boston, MA). The final dimensions
of the flyers and target materials are shown in Table II.
The flyers and targets were lapped parallel to less than 10
µm and flat to within 0.5 µm variation across the surface.
Four encapsulated copper shorting pins (tilt pins) were glued
to the target and lapped flush to the target surface; see in-
set in Fig. 1b. These pins were connected to a digital cir-
cuit, which was connected to a high-speed digital oscilloscope
sampling at 20 GigaSamples/s (MSO9404A, Keysight Tech-
nologies, Inc., Santa Rosa, CA) to determine the contact time
of the flyer with the target. The contact time of each pin with