Energetic material detonations and related structural material deformation behaviour under high strain rate loading

摘要

It is a pleasure to introduce this issue of Materials Science and Technology focusing on the linked themes of energetic (explosive) materials and the associated deformation behaviour of structural materials at high strain rates, coordinated by Professor R. W. (Ron) Armstrong of the University of Maryland. To someone familiar with structural materials, whose function is to maintain integrity when subjected to service loads, energetic materials represent a complete antithesis, since their function is to explode with great violence when required to do so, yet remain safe to store and handle until the explosion is triggered. Recent advances in understanding of these materials, accompanied by the development of characterisation and test techniques with high spatial and temporal resolution, make a series of articles on this topic particularly timely. As the introductory review by Armstrong and Elban1 illustrates, it , is only relatively recently that the extensive physical and chemical property knowledge base on reference energetic materials has been interpreted in what might be considered a materials science framework, introducing models to link crystallography and microstructure to composite properties of energetic material formula-tions. Mechanical initiation of detonation has been convincingly interpreted, via localised hot spots, in terms of dislocation theory, and the progress of the explosion front is explained in terms of the propagation of a Shockwave, as described by Walley et al.~2 In the review by Remington et al.,~3 the mechanical behaviour of structural materials is investigated at the highest measurable loading rates.