Material response mechanisms are needed to obtain highly accurate experimental shock wave data

Abstract

The field of shock wave compression of matter has provided a simple set of equations relating thermodynamic and kinematic parameters that describe the conservation of mass, momentum and energy across a steady plane shock wave with one-dimensional flow. Well-known condensed matter shock wave experimental results will be reviewed to see whether the assumptions required for deriving these simple R-H equations are satisfied. Note that the material compression model is not required for deriving the 1-D conservation flow equations across a steady plane shock front. However, this statement is misleading from a practical experimental viewpoint since obtaining small systematic errors in shock wave measured parameters requires the material compression and release mechanisms to be known. A review will be presented on errors in shock wave data from common experimental techniques for elastic-plastic solids. Issues related to time scales of experiments, steady waves with long rise times and detonations will also be discussed