The behavior of a thin elastic plate with a rectilinear notch under the action a weak shock wave in air is studied experimentally. A technique is developed for this purpose. The effect of the notch on the strain state of the plate is analyzed Keywords: elastic plate, rectilinear notch, shock wave, experiment technique Introduction. Structural members in the form of plates and shells with various special-purpose or process-induced inhomogeneities (holes, cutouts, notches, cracks etc.) are widely used in many areas of technology. This necessitates studying the influence of such inhomogeneities on the strain state, stability, and fracture of structural members. These issues are well covered in the scientific literature. For example, the influence of an edge crack and a hole on the fracture of plates under tension was examined in [8,10]. In [7], applied theories of shells are used to study the nonstationary dynamics of structurally inhomogeneous shell elements, and experimental results on the effect of shock waves on them are presented. Results on the nonstationary behavior of punched thin plates are given in [4,9]. The photoelastic method was used in [11,12] to study the wave stress field in a plate with a circular hole and in a plate with a curvilinear hole with an edge crack under an impulsive load.Here we will study the influence of a notch on the deformation of thin glass-fiber-reinforced plastic plates under the action of a normally incident shock wave described by a step function. A special technique will be developed. We will experimentally study the nonstationary deformation and analyze the qualitative effect of the notch on the strain state of the plate at the time of maximum deflection caused by the shock wave.1. Technique of Study. The dynamic tests are schematized in Fig. 1, which shows test plate 1with notch 2; shock wave front 3 propagating along shock tube 4 in the direction indicated by arrows; piezoelectric transducers 5, which are elements of a wavefront velocity sensor; oscilloscope 6 recoding the moments the wavefront passes the piezoelectric transducers 5; resistance strain gages 7; computer 8.The test plates are made of SF-1-150 glass-cloth-base laminate (GOST 10316-78) with elastic modulus Å = 2.6×10 10 Pa and density r =1.7 g/cm 3 . The experiments [13] showed that rod and flat structural members of this material do not change their elastic properties under repeated (up to several hundred times) action of weak shock waves causing strains of no larger than 3×10 -3 . Rectangular plates with thickness h = 2.5 mm and sides a = 140 mm and b = 210 mm were rigidly fixed on the short sides between two steel frames 10 mm thick each. The inside dimensions of the frames are 210´140 mm, which coincide with the effective cross-section of the diaphragm-type shock tube; the outside dimensions are 300´230 mm. The plates were fixed with screws and the restrained surfaces were glued with cold-setting epoxy adhesive. The gaps between the long sides of the test plate and the inside of the frame were 0.5 mm appro...