Two-Zone Elastic-Plastic Single Shock Waves in Solids
Abstract
By decoupling time and length scales in moving window molecular dynamics shock-wave simulations, a new regime of shock-wave propagation is uncovered characterized by a two-zone elastic-plastic shock-wave structure consisting of a leading elastic front followed by a plastic front, both moving with the same average speed and having a fixed net thickness that can extend to microns. The material in the elastic zone is in a metastable state that supports a pressure that can substantially exceed the critical pressure characteristic of the onset of the well-known split-elastic-plastic, two-wave propagation. The two-zone elastic-plastic wave is a general phenomenon observed in simulations of a broad class of crystalline materials and is within the reach of current experimental techniques.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- September 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.135502
- Bibcode:
- 2011PhRvL.107m5502Z
- Keywords:
-
- 62.50.Ef;
- 02.70.Ns;
- 62.20.D-;
- 62.20.F-;
- Shock wave effects in solids and liquids;
- Molecular dynamics and particle methods;
- Elasticity;
- Deformation and plasticity