Dynamic fracture of tantalum under extreme tensile stress

Bruno Albertazzi (1, 2) , Norimasa Ozaki (1, 3) , Vasily Zhakhovsky (4) , Anatoly Faenov (3) , Hideaki Habara (1) , Marion Harmand (5) , Nicholas Hartley (1) , Denis Ilnitsky (4) , Nail Inogamov (4) , Yuichi Inubushi (6) , Tetsuya Ishikawa (7) , Tetsuo Katayama (7, 6) , Takahisa Koyama (6) , Michel Koenig (2, 8) , Andrew Krygier (5) , Takeshi Matsuoka (8) , Satoshi Matsuyama (1) , Emma Mcbride (9, 10) , Kirill Petrovich Migdal (4) , Guillaume Morard (5) , Haruhiko Ohashi (6) , Takuo Okuchi (11) , Tatiana Pikuz (12) , Narangoo Purevjav (11) , Osami Sakata (13) , Yasuhisa Sano (1) , Tomoko Sato (14) , Toshimori Sekine (14) , Yusuke Seto (15) , Kenjiro Takahashi (3) , Kazuo Tanaka (1) , Yoshinori Tange (6) , Tadashi Togashi (6, 7) , Kensuke Tono (7, 6) , Yuhei Umeda (14) , Tommaso Vinci (2) , Makina Yabashi (7) , Toshinori Yabuuchi (7, 1) , Kazuto Yamauchi (1) , Hirokatsu Yumoto (6) , Ryosuke Kodama (12, 1, 16)

1 Graduate School of Engineering Science [Toyonaka, Osaka]
2 LULI - Laboratoire pour l'utilisation des lasers intenses
3 Photon Pioneers Center, Osaka University
4 Dukhov Research Institute of Automatics
5 IMPMC - Institut de minéralogie, de physique des matériaux et de cosmochimie
6 JASRI - Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute [Hyogo]
7 RIKEN - RIKEN - Institute of Physical and Chemical Research [Japon]
8 Osaka University [Osaka]
9 SLAC - SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
10 XFEL - European XFEL GmbH
11 Okayama University
12 Institute for Academic Initiatives, Osaka University
13 NIMS - National Institute for Materials Science
14 Hiroshima University
15 Kobe University
16 Institute of laser Engineering

The understanding of fracture phenomena of a material at extremely high strain rates is a key issue for a wide variety of scientific research ranging from applied science and technological developments to fundamental science such as laser-matter interaction and geology. Despite its interest, its study relies on a fine multiscale description, in between the atomic scale and macroscopic processes, so far only achievable by large-scale atomic simulations. Direct ultrafast real-time monitoring of dynamic fracture (spallation) at the atomic lattice scale with picosecond time resolution was beyond the reach of experimental techniques. We show that the coupling between a high-power optical laser pump pulse and a femtosecond x-ray probe pulse generated by an x-ray free electron laser allows detection of the lattice dynamics in a tantalum foil at an ultrahigh strain rate of Embedded Image $\dot \varepsilon$~2 × 10$^8$ to 3.5 × 10$^8$ s$^{−1}$. A maximal density drop of 8 to 10%, associated with the onset of spallation at a spall strength of ~17 GPa, was directly measured using x-ray diffraction. The experimental results of density evolution agree well with large-scale atomistic simulations of shock wave propagation and fracture of the sample. Our experimental technique opens a new pathway to the investigation of ultrahigh strain-rate phenomena in materials at the atomic scale, including high-speed crack dynamics and stress-induced solid-solid phase transitions

Domains: Physics [physics]

Bruno Albertazzi, Norimasa Ozaki, Vasily Zhakhovsky, Anatoly Faenov, Hideaki Habara, et al.. Dynamic fracture of tantalum under extreme tensile stress. Science Advances , 2017, 3 (6), pp.e1602705. ⟨10.1126/sciadv.1602705⟩. ⟨cea-01888908⟩