Polymers are increasingly used in many applications where they have to withstand stresses and elongation due to impact loading. Unlike metals polymers exhibit rate dependent, visco-elastic, material properties. The possibility to characterize the fracture behaviour under high-rate loading is therefore very important. A standard test method has not been employed yet. The aim of this work was to describe the use of plate impact tests to investigate the applicability of a new method for measuring the high-rate fracture toughness of polymers. Results from previous research have been investigated and party confirmed. Furthermore, experiments have been performed to investigate the effect of the notch position. In the main testing programme four different polymers were tested and the fracture toughness was calculated. For polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), the fracture toughness was calculated to be 0.55MPam^1/2 with a standard deviation of 0.32MPam^1/2 and for epoxy 0.36MPam^1/2 with a relatively low standard deviation of 0.09MPam^1/2. Polyvinylchloride (PVC) was difficult to evaluate due to the lack of results that showed fracture with crack arrest. For polycarbonate (PC), no appropriate results have been achieved. Extensive effort has been put into the further development of the testing and data acquisition facilities. A numerical analysis of the impact test using both a finite volume and a finite element analysis has been performed. The method looks promising for brittle polymers