Multi-scale simulation study on characteristics of free surface velocity curve in ductile metal spallation

Abstract

The spallation characteristics of ductile tantalum metal under planar plate impact was analyzed through a multi-scale perspective. And the typical characteristics of the free-surface velocity curve on the macro-scale were interpreted from the micro-scale to reveal the physical meanings corresponding to these typical characteristics. On the macro-scale, the spallation behaviors of the ductile tantalum metal under planar-plate impact were numerically simulated through the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) and Lagrange methods, and the free-surface velocity curves of the tantalum during spallation were obtained. In addition, the free-surface velocity curves obtained by the Johnson-Cook model, Steinberg-Cochran-Guinan model and Zerilli-Armstrong model were compared in the numerical simulations. Comparison with the experimental data shows that the Steinberg-Cochran-Guinan constitutive model has a better performance in the macro-level simulation. The free-surface velocity curves at different strain rates were obtained by changing the loading conditions, and the typical characteristics of the free-surface velocity curves at different strain rates were discussed. Results show that there is an exponential relationship between spall strength and strain rate, and the spall strength obtained from the simulation has a good agreement with the experimental data. On the micro-scale, the damage evolution in the spallation region was obtained by molecular dynamics simulation conducted in the LAMMPS software, and the loading strain rate was consistent with that on the macro-scale. The micro-scale simulation reveals the physical connotation of the typical characteristics of the macro-scale free-surface velocity curve. Micro-scale analysis shows that spallation is the response of damage evolution of nucleation, growth, and aggregation of voids. From the multi-scale perspective analysis, the typical characteristics on the free-surface velocity curve are closely related to the damage evolution in the spallation area: the pullback signal is a macroscopic response of the void nucleation in the spall area; the decline amplitude of the free-surface velocity curve reflects the void nucleation condition, and the spall strength reflects the nucleation strength of the voids. What’s more, the velocity rises to the first peak beyond the minima after the pullback signal reflects the rate of damage evolution. The multi-scale perspective analysis is helpful to fully understand the physical mechanism of the spallation under planar-plate impact.