Table of contents

Statistical theory of evolution of typical mesoscopic defects revealed specific type of criticality - structural-scaling transitions and allowed the development of phenomenology of damage and plastic flow in materials under intensive loading, which established characteristic multiscale collective modes of defects responsible for formation of plastic waves and damage-failure transition. Original approach based on wide range constitutive equations was developed for simulation of multiscale damage-failure transition mechanisms and shock wave propagation in metals and ceramics in range of strain rate 10³ − 10⁸ s⁻¹. It was shown that mechanisms of a plastic relaxation and damage-failure transitions are linked to multiscale kinetics of mesodefects collective modes with the nature of solitary waves and blow-up dissipative structures consequently. Numerical simulation of original plate impact tests showed that the model describes shock wave loading for metals and ceramics, and allowed us to explain the effect of power law phenomena of plastic wave fronts formation, its self-similar features under reloading and unloading. Analysis of shock wave profiles in ceramics for different thicknesses of specimens in terms of self-similar variables supports the universality of shock wave fronts.

Eulerian hydrocodes were originally developed for simulating strong shocks in solids and fluids, but their ability to handle arbitrarily large deformations and the formation of new free surfaces makes them attractive for simulating the deformation and failure of materials at the mesoscopic scale. A summary of several numerical techniques that have been developed to address issues that commonly arise for this class of problems is presented.

We have carried out several experiments on the Los Alamos proton radiography (pRad) facility to explore the growth of perturbations subjected to shockless acceleration. These experiments have involved both Tantalum and depleted Uranium plates with various initial amplitudes. The experimental platform is based on the one first developed by Barnes et al. [1] and further advanced by Raevsky [2]. This paper presents both the data for these experiments and an initial attempt to model the experiments using the simulation code FLAG [3].

Simple reactive flow models for condensed explosives have four requirements: two equations of state (EOS), one for the unreacted condensed-phase explosive and one for its detonation products, a reaction rate law that converts the explosive in products and a mixture rule to compute the biphasic partially reacted states (with both unreacted explosive and products). Generally, the chemical reaction rates are governed by local temperature. Nonetheless, temperature fields are scarcely known, especially in detonating explosives. Hence this quantity is not provided by the usual unreacted explosive EOS with the required accuracy. As a consequence, for shock initiation and detonation phenomena, rate laws are based on easily measurable properties such as pressure, density, compression or particle velocity. In this work, we try to build a temperature-based reaction rate law. This model is expected to give interesting results as regards shock initiation and desensitization while remaining accurate for detonation propagation.

The fragmentation of structures subject to dynamic conditions is a matter of interest for civil industries as well as for Defence institutions. Dynamic expansions of structures, such as cylinders or rings, have been performed to obtain crucial information on fragment distributions. Many authors have proposed to capture by FEA the experimental distribution of fragment size by introducing in the FE model a perturbation. Stability and bifurcation analyses have also been proposed to describe the evolution of the perturbation growth rate. In the proposed contribution, the multiple necking of a round bar in dynamic tensile loading is analysed by the FE method. A perturbation on the initial flow stress is introduced in the numerical model to trigger instabilities. The onset time and the dominant mode of necking have been characterized precisely and showed power law evolutions, with the loading velocities and moderately with the amplitudes and the cell sizes of the perturbations. In the second part of the paper, the development of linear stability analysis and the use of salient criteria in terms of the growth rate of perturbations enabled comparisons with the numerical results. A good correlation in terms of onset time of instabilities and of number of necks is shown.

It is well established that the inclusion of reactive metals in explosive formulations can enhance post-detonation energy release but it remains unclear, even for idealized systems, how the composition and microstructure of metal containing porous solid explosives affects dissipative heating within compaction waves that is important for weak initiation of detonation. In this study, we perform inert meso-scale simulations to computationally examine how the initial porosity and metal mass fraction of aluminized HMX influences dissipation within compaction waves and we compare predictions to those given by a macro-scale compaction theory. The meso-scale model uses a hyperthermoelastic-viscoplastic and stick-slip friction theory to track the evolution of thermomechanical fields within individual particles that result from pore collapse within waves. Effective quasi-steady wave profiles are obtained by averaging meso-scale fields over space and time. The macro-scale theory predicts the variation in effective thermomechanical fields within waves due to imbalances in the phase-specific pressures and configurational stresses. Qualitative agreement exists between meso-scale and macro-scale predictions.

Shock Hugoniot data for full-density and porous compounds of boron carbide, silicon dioxide, tantalum pentoxide, uranium dioxide and playa alluvium are investigated for the purpose of equation-of-state representation of intense shock compression. Complications of multivalued Hugoniot behavior characteristic of highly distended solids are addressed through the application of enthalpy-based equations of state of the form originally proposed by Rice and Walsh in the late 1950's. Additive measures of cold and thermal pressure intrinsic to the Mie-Gruneisen EOS framework is replaced by isobaric additive functions of the cold and thermal specific volume components in the enthalpy-based formulation. Additionally, experimental evidence reveals enhancement of shock-induced phase transformation on the Hugoniot with increasing levels of initial distension for silicon dioxide, uranium dioxide and possibly boron carbide. Methods for addressing this experimentally observed feature of the shock compression are incorporated into the EOS model.

The Large-Bore Powder Gun is being developed to provide impact experiments on physics samples at the Nevada Test Site. A confinement system is required to seal the target chamber from the gun system to keep it free of hazardous materials from the impact event. A key component of the confinement system is an explosively driven valve (EDV), which uses a small amount of explosive to drive an aluminum piston perpendicular to the barrel axis into a tapered hole. The objective of this study is to evaluate designs of the confinement system via computational simulations using models validated with prototype experiments. A novel approach is adopted for this work, in which an energy source developed based on interior ballistic calculations was implemented in a hydrocode, which in turn was used to model the propellant flow, EDV operation, and their interactions. This paper describes the models and some simulation results leading to a proposed confinement system design.

In this article we discuss scaling the magnetically accelerated flyer plate technique to currents greater than is available on the Z accelerator. Peak flyer plate speeds in the range 7-46 km/s are achieved in pulsed power driven, hyper-velocity impact experiments on Z for peak currents in the range 8-20 MA. The highest (lowest) speeds are produced using aluminum (aluminum-copper) flyer plates. In either case, the =1 mm thick flyer plate is shocklessly accelerated by magnetic pressure to ballistic speed in =400 ns; it arrives at the target with a fraction of material at standard density. During acceleration a melt front, due to resistive heating, moves from the drive-side toward the target-side of the flyer plate; the speed of the melt front increases with increasing current. Peak flyer speeds on Z scale quadratically (linearly) with current at the low (high) end of the range. Magnetohydrodynamic simulation shows that the change in scaling is due to geometric deformation, and that linear scaling continues as current increases. However, the combined effects of shockless acceleration and resistive heating lead to an upper bound on the magnetic field feasible for pulsed power driven flyer plate experiments, which limits the maximum possible speed of a useful flyer plate to < 100 km/s.

There is an observed effect of an explosive's constituent grain size and density on its performance. At the mesoscale, it is the outward burning of hot spots that controls observed performance. While statistical hot spot models can integrate the mesoscale behaviour to macroscale simulations, it is unknown what the density of created hot spots is as a function of grain size and porosity. Simulating mesoscale hot spot distributions and varying hot spot density, we discuss the resultant performance as influenced by inter-pore distance and pore distribution.

Recently the possibility of achieving quasi-isentropic compression using functionally graded materials, in both gas gun and explosive driven systems was explored by hydro-dynamic simulations. In the current paper, we show that multi-layered composite flyer with progressively increasing shock impedances, referred to as graded density impactor (GDI), has the potential to enable increased flexibility in suitably tailoring the applied-pressure profiles, further relaxing constraints on the thermodynamic path of compressed material. Present simulation study pertaining to constant velocity impact of GDI reveals that linear ramp pulses of different pressure rise times, with comparable peak values can be realized only by changing the layer thicknesses of a particular GDI. We report generation of three different slope ramp pulses by five layer GDI made of PMMA, Al, Ti, Cu and Ta with different set of thicknesses obtained by genetic algorithm based optimization technique. Generation of long duration (μs) isentropic pressures using discrete GDI is a significant step, since it is devoid of fabrication difficulties of ultra-thin lamellae of FGM. Signatures of isentropic compression of a thin Cu target under different slope ramp loadings are identified from basic thermodynamic aspects in terms of temperature rise and entropy production. It is shown that that extent of entropy increase is closely related to the slope of ramping pulse. Further, a physical model has been constructed to determine approximate time profile of pressure pulse generated by equal layer-width GDI.

The formation of post-detonation 'particle' jets is widely observed in many problems associated with explosive dispersal of granular materials and liquids. Jets have been shown to form very early, however the mechanism controlling the number of jetting instabilities remains unresolved despite a number of active theories. Recent experiments involving cylindrical charges with a range of central explosive masses for dispersal of dry solid particles and pure liquid are used to formulate macroscopic numerical models for jet formation and growth. The number of jets is strongly related to the dominant perturbation during the shock interaction timescale that controls the initial fracturing of the particle bed and liquid bulk. Perturbations may originate at the interfaces between explosive, shock-dispersed media, and outer edge of the charge due to Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities. The inner boundary controls the number of major structures, while the outer boundary may introduce additional overlapping structures and microjets that are overtaken by the major structures. In practice, each interface may feature a thin casing material that breaks up, thereby influencing or possibly dominating the instabilities. Hydrocode simulation is used to examine the role of each interface in conjunction with casing effects on the perturbation leading to jet initiation. The subsequent formation of coherent jet structures requires dense multiphase flow of particles and droplets that interact though inelastic collision, agglomeration, and turbulent flow. Macroscopic multiphase flow simulation shows dense particle clustering and major jet structures overtaking smaller instabilities. Late-time dispersal is controlled by particle drag and evaporation of droplets. Numerical results for dispersal and jetting evolution are compared with experiments.

The Lagrangian Material Point Method (MPM) [1, 2] has been implemented into the Eulerian shock physics code CTH [3] at Sandia National Laboratories. Eulerian hydrodynamic methods are useful for large deformation problems, where mesh tangling typically leads to difficulties for Lagrangian finite element methods. However, Eulerian techniques suffer from numerical diffusion due to advection, which can be problematic for many material models requiring the transport of a damage parameter or other state variables that need to remain sharp [4]. The inclusion of the MPM in CTH allows for the accurate simulation of structural response to shock loading in a single framework. This paper presents a comparison of the shock response of the MPM and CPDI to the CTH hydrodynamics code.

Shocks in granular media, such as vertically oscillated beds, have been shown to develop instabilities. Similar jet formation has been observed in explosively dispersed granular media. Our previous work addressed this instability by performing discrete-particle simulations of inelastic media undergoing shock compression. By allowing finite dissipation within the shock wave, instability manifests itself as distinctive high density non-uniformities and convective rolls within the shock structure. In the present study we have extended this work to investigate this instability at the continuum level. We modeled the Euler equations for granular gases with a modified cooling rate to include an impact velocity threshold necessary for inelastic collisions. Our results showed a fair agreement between the continuum and discrete-particle models. Discrepancies, such as higher frequency instabilities in our continuum results may be attributed to the absence of higher order effects.

The Penetrator with Enhanced Lateral Effect (PELE) is a type of explosive-free projectile that undergoes radial fragmentation upon an impact with a target plate. This type of projectile is composed of a brittle cylindrical shell (the jacket) filled in its core with a material characterized with a large Poisson's ratio. Upon an impact with a target, the axial compression causes the filling to expand in the radial direction. However, due to the brittleness of the jacket material, very little radial deformation can occur which creates a radial stress between the two materials and a hoop stress in the jacket. Fragmentation of the jacket occurs if the hoop stress exceeds the material's ultimate stress. The PELE fragmentation dynamics is explored via Finite-Element Method (FEM) simulations using the Autodyn explicit dynamics hydrocode. The numerical results are compared with an analytical model based on wave interactions, as well as with the experimental investigation of Paulus and Schirm (1996). The comparison is based on the mechanical stress in the filling and the qualitative fragmentation of the jacket.

We describe a simple hydrocode based on a two-step integration scheme that models the evolution of elastic and plastic strains in crystals subject to rapid laser-shock loading. By monitoring the elastic strains during plastic flow we track the rotation and spacing of lattice planes within the polycrystalline sample, and can thus predict the signal that would be produced by x-ray diffraction in a variety of experimental geometries. By employing a simple Taylor-Orowan dislocation model we simulate diffraction patterns in a Debye-Scherrer geometry to track the orthogonal strain states within a laser-shocked sample. The yielding rate is approximately matched to those observed in multi-million atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, allowing movies to be made of the diffraction images that would be seen in a real experimental geometry, and illustrating the pertinent experimental requirements, including target texture. Judicious choice of geometry allows clear demarcation of the initial elastic response of the target to be made from the subsequent plastic relaxation. We discuss the simulations in the context of the novel experimental capabilities that have recently become available with the advent of 4th generation light sources, which allow single-shot diffraction with sub-100-fsec resolution.