A model of plasticity that couples discrete dislocation dynamics and finite element analysis was used to investigate shock-induced dislocation nucleation in Cu single crystals. Homogeneous nucleation of dislocations was included based upon large-scale atomistic shock simulations. The resulting prodigious rate of dislocation production takes the uniaxially compressed material to a hydrostatically compressed state after a few tens of picoseconds. The density of dislocations produced in a sample with preexisting dislocation sources decreased slightly as shock rise time increased, implying that relatively lower densities would be expected for isentropic loading using extremely long rise times as suggested experimentally.

Simulation of Shock-Induced Plasticity Including Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Dislocation Nucleations. M.A.Shehadeh, E.M.Bringa, H.M.Zbib, J.M.McNaney, B.A.Remington: Applied Physics Letters, 2006, 89[17], 171918 (3pp)