Publications

Mesoscale studies of shock loaded tin sphere lattices

Baer, Melvin B.; Baer, Melvin B.; Trott, Wayne T.

The shock response of heterogeneous materials involves highly fluctuating states and localization effects that are produced by mesostructure. Prior studies have examined this shock behavior in randomized inert and reactive media. In this work, we investigate the shock behavior in a porous lattice consisting of hexagonally packed layers of 500 {micro}m tin spheres impacted at 0.5 km/s. This ordered geometry provides a well-defined configuration to validate mesoscale material modeling based on three-dimensional CTH calculations. Detailed wave fields are experimentally probed using a line-imaging interferometer and transmitted particle velocities are compared to numerical mesoscale calculations. Multiple shock fronts traverse the porous layers whereby particle-to-particle interactions cause stress bridging effects and the evolution of organized wave structures.