This paper reviews experimental as well as computational techniques for determining stress-strain characteristics of materials at high strain rates. Quasi-static and dynamic compression tests were performed on standard Lead (Pb) specimens of three different L/D ratios, 0.8, 2 and 3. A Drop tower system was used to achieve different strain rates along with high-speed camera to capture the vertical and radial deformation of specimen and accelerometers to capture load data. The results obtained from the experiments were processed to generate dynamic stress-strain curve for Lead under different strain rate conditions. It was observed that the dynamic stress increases with increasing strain rate. The information gained is valuable for validating constitutive models.

In today's world, speed to market and cost are major drivers for every product development process in an organization. Utilization of tools like Design of experiments, Topology optimization combined with finite element analysis will help in reducing the complexity, cost and product life cycle of structural components without compromising the structural strength. Perforated plates have found variety of applications in structural members and various studies have been conducted on perforated plate with lateral load and effect of cut out shapes on the strength. As the cutouts in such plates induces stress concentration, it is important to study the effect of parameters like plate thickness, hole diameter, spacing of perforation on the strength of these plates. The objective is to study the effect of mainly three parameters, hole diameter, plate thickness and hole pattern on stress. Design of experiment methodology is applied to list out all possible combinations for these parameters. FEA results for all 144 combinations is analyzed and experimental verification is done for 3 combinations. From the results of DOE and Finite element analysis, a generalized equation was established correlating effects of hole diameter, plate thickness, hole pattern for sensitivity analysis. It is found that plate thickness has major effect on stress and deformation followed by hole spacing in direction perpendicular to bolting face. The effect of hole diameter is minimal.