Shock and Diagnostics Team (SDT): Chamber 9 Capabilities Overview
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Huber, Rachel Colleen.
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Porous polymer foams are found in numerous applications where they may be subjected to dynamic compression. The shockwave properties of polymer foams have several features that make shock Hugoniot measurements and interpretation challenging. Here, we present a comparison of dynamic X-ray phase contrast imaging and traditional optical velocimetry approaches to measuring the shocked states for a low-density carbon foam. Overall, dynamic X-ray phase contrast imaging was found to reduce errors associated with the measured Hugoniot states. In this study, the foam exhibits anomalous compression as expected due to its high initial porosity arising from shock heating.
We performed a series of six plate impact experiments on polyimide and modeled them using new reactant and products equations of state combined with an Arrhenius rate model. The first experiment was diagnosed with embedded electromagnetic velocity gauges through which we directly observed attenuation of the lead shock to an approximately constant state over a propagation distance of roughly 4 mm. Simulated gauge profiles were in excellent qualitative agreement with experiment and suggested a sluggish chemical reaction that did not proceed to completion. The remaining five experiments were conducted in a transmission geometry and diagnosed velocimetrically at the sample/window interface. All five of these yielded profiles with a sharp shock followed by a more gradual approach to maximum interface velocity that was “rounded” to varying degree. These profiles proved difficult to interpret unambiguously due to the convolution of the reactive wave upon first shock with reflection of the lead wave and reshock or release by the window. Comparison with thermochemical calculations strongly suggests that the point of maximum interface velocity corresponds to the equilibrium reshock or release locus. We discuss the implications of this point for the practice of impedance matching based on the reflected Hugoniot of reactive materials such as polymers. The reactant and thermochemical products equations of state are developmental SESAME tables 97710 and 97720, respectively.