Modelling of spall damage evolution and fragment distribution for melted metals under shock release

Abstract

A strong shock-wave, produced by plate impact, explosive detonation or laser irradiation, can induce metal materials to melt. Reflection of the triangular pressure wave from the free surface generates a strong tensile stress in the liquid state, resulting in the creation of an expanding cloud of liquid debris. This phenomenon is called micro-spalling. The understanding of spall damage evolution and dynamic fragmentation of melted metal under shockwave loading and subsequent releasing is an issue of considerable importance for both basic and applied science, to predict the evolution of engineering structures subjected to explosive detonation in implosive dynamics or inertial confinement fusion, the latter involving high energy laser irradiation of thin metallic shells. For dynamic failure processes, spall fracture in solid material has been extensively studied for many years, while scarce data can be found about how such a phenomenon can evolve after being melted partially or fully when being compressed or released. In this paper, by studying the physical laws of void evolution in melted metals, we expect to reveal the mode and criterion of void coalescence, inertial and temperature effects on void distribution and evolution, and the relationship between fragment distribution and characteristics of breakup of damaged material. According to these physical laws, we can develop theoretical model to describe the damage evolution and fragment distribution of metal that melts when shock releases. This model is implemented as a failure criterion in a one-dimensional hydrocode. The experimental results and computational results are in fairly good agreement with each other. Some discrepancies are explained by using both experimental uncertainties and model limitations which are carefully pointed out and discussed. We believe that these results can deepen our physical understanding of the damage evolutions of metals and improve the credibility of numerical simulation on the damage and fragmentation of materials under implosive loading.