High-Pressure Shock Compression of Solids VII : Shock Waves and Extreme States of Matter

Presenting some of the most recent results of Russian research into shock compression, as well as historical overviews of the Russian research programs into shock compression, this volume will provide Western researchers with many novel ideas and points of view. The chapters in this volume are written by leading Russian specialists various fields of high-pressure physics and form accounts of the main researches on the behavior of matter under shock-wave interaction. The experimental portions contain results of studies of shock compression of metals to high and ultra-high pressure, shock initiation of polymorphic transformations, strength, fracture and fragmentation under shock compression, and detonation of condensed explosives. There are also chapters on theoretical investigations of shock-wave compression and plasma states in regimes of high-pressure and high- temperature. The topics of the book are of interest to scientists and engineers concerned with questions of material behavior under impulsive loading and to the equation of state of matter. Application is to questions of high-speed impact, inner composition of planets, verification of model representations of material behavior under extreme 1oading conditions, syntheses of new materials, development of new technologies for material processing, etc. Russian research differs from much of the Western work in that it has traditionally been wider-ranging and more directed to extremes of response than to precise characterization of specific materials and effects. Western scientists could expect to benefit from the perspective gained from close knowledge of the Russian work.

In the mid-1950s, experimental studies of condensed matter at ultrahigh pressures (i.e., high energy densities) started to appear in the literature, made possible by use of strong shock waves to alter the state of the material studied. Since then, laboratory and underground nuclear test results have provided equation-of-state data for many chemical elements and compounds over a very wide range of thermodynamic states. They have also allowed scientists to determine high pressure melting curves, to discover previously unknown electronic transitions, to produce strongly non-ideal plasmas, and to study phenomena that occur at much higher values of physical parameters than are attainable by other methods. The data are of fundamental scientific value, and knowledge of shock-wave properties of materials and their equations of state over a wide range of the thermodynamic variables is necessary for the solution of many important scientific and technical problems.

Shock Waves and Extreme States of Matter presents a detailed account of the development of Russian technology for conducting dynamic experiments to study material properties and behavior and some of the basic results so far obtained. The book consists of surveys prepared by the leading Russian scientists in the field. Experimental and theoretical results of the authors are presented and a generalization and systematization of the extensive material on the physics of shock waves and high-pressure phenomena is provided.

Topics discussed include:

Development of dynamic research techniques for studying high pressure

Problems of detonation of condensed explosives and creation high-velocity-impact devices

Shock compression data that reach a maximum pressure of 10 TPa in solid and highly porous metals. Computational models and descriptions of experimental data include wide-range Hugoniots for 80 substances

Mechanisms, kinetics and thermodynamics of polymorphic transformations

Experimental, theoretical, and computational investigations of the response of metals in the range of elastic-plastic deformation

Optical temperature measurements on ionic crystals and liquid argon and xenon that permit development of improved equations of state of these materials and extend the melting curves of ionic crystals

Quasi-isentropic compression data for molecular hydrogen and deuterium and the parameters of a new EOS for the solid and liquid phases

Both a semiempirical extension of van der Waals' model oriented toward experimental data description of dense states of matter and an a priori chemical model of highly non-ideal plasma produce wide-range EOSs

Fracture of large structures subjected to the action of dynamic forces.