Strength Characterization of Soils’ Properties at High Strain Rates Using the Hopkinson Technique—A Review of Experimental Testing

Abstract

The paper presents a review of crucial experiments and the latest publications, presenting the previous and current trends in experimental research in 2018–2021 in the area of soil dynamic interaction based on the Hopkinson bar technique. A review of investigated experimental test stands was made, in particular, cohesive and non-cohesive soil specimens prepared with different dimensions and densities. From this study, it can be concluded that the dynamic response of the soil depends on many factors, e.g., density, cohesion, moisture and grain structure of the soil specimen. There is still a noticeable interest in SHPB experiments performed in both 1D and 3D versions under modified conditions (frozen/heated soil specimen, different degree of water saturation content of the soil sample) in a wide range of strain rates 102–104 s−1, which is a large field for further research. The need to learn about the characteristics of various types of soil (both cohesive and non-cohesive) for the selection of structural design solutions for the protection elements of critical infrastructure was emphasized.