skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Spallation studies on shock loaded uranium

Conference ·
OSTI ID:332753

Uranium samples at two different purity levels were used for spall strength measurements at three different stress levels. A 50 mm single-stage gas-gun was used to produce planar impact conditions using Z-cut quartz impactors. Samples of depleted uranium were taken from very high purity material and from material that had 300 ppm of carbon added. A pair of shots was done for each impact strength, one member of the pair with VISAR diagnostics and the second with soft recovery for metallographical examination. A series of increasing final stress states were chosen to effectively freeze the microstructural damage at three places in the development to full spall separation. This allowed determination of the dependence of spall mechanisms on stress level and sample purity. This report will discuss both the results of the metallurgical examination of soft recovered samples and the modeling of the free surface VISAR data. The micrographs taken from the recovered samples show brittle cracking as the spallation failure mechanism. Deformation induced twins are plentiful and obviously play a role in the spallation process. The twins are produced in the initial shock loading and, so, are present already before the fracture process begins. The 1 d characteristics code CHARADE has been used to model the free surface VISAR data.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
OSTI ID:
332753
Report Number(s):
SAND-98-1591; CONF-9709141-PROC.; ON: DE99000778; TRN: IM9916%%55
Resource Relation:
Conference: 5. joint Russian-American computational mathematics conference, Albuquerque, NM (United States), 2-5 Sep 1997; Other Information: PBD: [1997]; Related Information: Is Part Of Proceedings of the 5. joint Russian-American computational mathematics conference; PB: 312 p.
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English