Experimental Investigation of Shock Wave Attenuation in Basalt

Abstract

Shock compression experiments on Kinosaki basalt were carried out in the interest of studying collisional phenomena in the solar nebula. Shock waves of 7 and 31 GPa were generated using a thin flyer plate, and a shock wave of 16 GPa was generated using a thick cylindrical projectile. By employing in-material manganin and carbon pressure gauges, the shock wave attenuation was examined and the propagation velocities of the shock wave and rarefaction wave were measured. The attenuation mechanism consists of two effects: the rarefaction wave and geometrical expansion. The rarefaction effect includes the reflected wave and the edge wave. The efficiency of these mechanisms depends on the geometry of the projectile, initially induced pressure, and materials of the target and projectile. As a result of the experiments, a cylindrical impactor created an isobaric region of size almost equal to the projectile radius. The shock wave in the far field was attenuated similarly with the power of −1.7 to −1.8 of the propagation distance under our experimental conditions. The shock wave generated using a thin flyer plate was attenuated by the rarefaction wave generated on the back surface of the flyer plate and by geometrical expansion effects. The shock wave generated using a thick projectile was attenuated by edge-wave and by geometrical expansion effects. According to elastic theory, the rigidity of basalt at 7 and 31 GPa was calculated as 35±7 and 0±3 GPa, respectively, using the measured rarefaction wave velocities. The decayed shock pressure was related to the ejection velocity of the impact fragments, which were obtained in previous disruption experiments. The attenuation rates in previous experiments were consistent with ours. The previous impact scaling parameter called “nondimensional impact stress (PI)” has been improved.