At DyMaLab, a novel dynamic high pressure torsion (SPD-HPT) facility is available. This unique experimental setup imposes a torsional deformation to a sample subjected to a high hydrostatic pressure. The extremely high power transfer to the material (i.e. 105 up to 109 times higher than conventional severe plastic deformation processes) aims at obtaining out-of-equilibrium processing conditions. Thanks to such conditions, an ultrafine grained microstructure –and corresponding excellent mechanical properties of the material- are obtained.

The SPD-HPT setup combines features of a static high pressure torsion device and a dynamic split Hopkinson tensile bar. Next to introducing severe plastic deformation, the setup also allows studying the behaviour of materials under combined torsional-axial loading. The facility is hence suitable to study material degradation and damage in the negative stress triaxiality regime, adiabatic shear banding, etc.