Dynamic damage nucleation and evolution in multiphase materials

For ductile metals, dynamic fracture occurs through void nucleation, growth, and coalescence. Previous experimental works in high purity metals have shown that microstructural features such as grain boundaries, inclusions, vacancies, and heterogeneities can act as initial void nucleation sites. However, for materials of engineering significance, those with, second phase particles it is less clear what the role of a soft second phase will be on damage nucleation and evolution. To approach this problem in a systematic manner, two materials have been investigated: high purity copper and copper with 1% lead. These materials have been shock loaded at ∼1.5 GPa and soft recovered. In-situ free surface velocity information and post mortem metallography reveals the presence of a high number of small voids in CuPb in comparison to a lower number of large voids in Cu. This suggests that damage evolution is nucleation dominated in the CuPb and growth dominated in the pure Cu. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.