Developing a pathway to microstructure-aware predictive capability for the shock / dynamic response of materials

It is sixty years since Cyril Stanley Smith's seminal paper describing the effects of shock loading on the structure / property behavior of metals. While numerous experimental observations have fostered the correlation of post-shock microstructural parameters, such as dislocations, point defects, deformation twins, shock-induced phase products, etc., with particular shock parameters, quantitative predictive capability of the defect generation and damage evolution in materials subjected to dynamic loading has yet to be realized. Broadly based defect generation/storage phenomenology presenting a unified view of the material structure/property aspects of shock-wave deformation for a wide range of crystal structures has proven very difficult. However, changes in design and manufacturing paradigms applied to events dominated by dynamic-loading processes have placed increased emphasis on developing physically-based predictive materials models of shock effects on materials as well as amazing innovations in in-situ shock diagnostics. In this paper, a survey of the evolution in the state-of-our-understanding of defect generation and damage evolution is discussed and thoughts on the evolving capabilities to move shock / dynamic behavior of materials research from observation to design and control is presented. Examples of how utilizing “real-time”, post-mortem, and “in-situ” experimental approaches together are needed to facilitate quantification 4D processes during shock-wave loading including dislocation / defect generation, shock-induced phase transitions, and damage evolution and spallation.