Anisotropic material model and wave propagation simulations for shocked pentaerythritol tetranitrate single crystals

Abstract

An anisotropic continuum material model was developed to describe the thermomechanical response of unreacted pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) single crystals to shock wave loading. Using this model, which incorporates nonlinear elasticity and crystal plasticity in a thermodynamically consistent tensor formulation, wave propagation simulations were performed to compare to experimental wave profiles [J. J. Dick and J. P. Ritchie, J. Appl. Phys. 76, 2726 (1994)] for PETN crystals under plate impact loading to 1.2 GPa. Our simulations show that for shock propagation along the [100] orientation where deformation across shear planes is sterically unhindered, a dislocation-based model provides a good match to the wave profile data. For shock propagation along the [110] direction, where deformation across shear planes is sterically hindered, a dislocation-based model cannot account for the observed strain-softening behavior. Instead, a shear cracking model was developed, providing good agreement with the data for [110] and [001] shock orientations. These results show that inelastic deformation due to hindered and unhindered shear in PETN occurs through mechanisms that are physically different. In addition, results for shock propagation normal to the (101) crystal plane suggest that the primary slip system identified from quasistatic indentation tests is not activated under shock wave loading. Overall, results from our continuum simulations are consistent with a previously proposed molecular mechanism for shock-induced chemical reaction in PETN in which the formation of polar conformers, due to hindered shear, facilitates the development of ionic reaction pathways.