Shock-Compression Gauges Cannot Be Calibrated

Perhaps the most widely misunderstood aspect of gauge development is the role of the controlled shock-compression experiment in the development process. It is often stated that the gauges are being calibrated. In fact, it is not possible to calibrate a gauge that must be used over the wide range of conditions and over the wide range of wave profiles encountered and is destroyed in use. Only in special cases of shocks to fixed conditions is the response measured for a gauge in controlled experiments directly a suitable calibration. Even in the direct shock experiment, the controlled shock-compression experiment serves as a shock calibration only if the reproducibility of materials in the sensor is evaluated quantitatively and a persistent reproducible materials source is available. 

The development of piezoresistant gauges provides a counterexample in that early work was based on empirical study of responses based on simple 

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