Damage in Polymer Bonded Energetic Composites: Effect of Loading Rate

Particulate composites are widely used in the materials world. An understanding of their damage behaviour under a variety of loading conditions is necessary to inform models of their response to external stimuli. In the present experimental study, fine and coarse grained RDX-HTPB composites have been used to investigate the effect of loading rate on the degree of damage produced in polymer bonded explosives subjected to varying degrees of uniaxial compression. High strain rate loading (4×10⁺³ s⁻¹) was achieved using a direct impact Hopkinson pressure bar and low strain rate loading (1×10⁻² s⁻¹) using an Instron mechanical testing machine. The causal metrics are the degree to which the samples were strained and the mechanical energy expended in straining them. The damage metric is the residual low rate compressive modulus of the samples. The quantitative, physically based, results discussed in terms of the Porter-Gould activated debonding damage model clearly demonstrate that for both fine and coarse fills there is a marked reduction in residual moduli as a function of imposed strain, and substantially less specific energy is required to cause the same level of damage at the lower strain-rate. In the case of the coarse grained composite there is some evidence for a change in damage mechanism at the higher strain-rate. We obtain a value for the measured work of adhesion and a measure of the effective modulus local to the damage site, as damage is actually occurring. The observed underlying behaviour should be broadly applicable to particulate composites, whenever stiff filler particles are held in a viscoelastic matrix.The authors wish to acknowledge financial support in the form of an Industrial CASE PhD Studentship for RLB funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and by QinetiQ [EP/I501290/1]; UK MOD via a WSTC contract; DMW and APJ acknowledge the financial support of AWE.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40870-016-0050-x The data underlying this article can be found at the following persistent URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/25319

A method for constrained optimisation of the design of a scanning helium microscope.

We describe a method for obtaining the optimal design of a normal incidence Scanning Helium Microscope (SHeM). Scanning helium microscopy is a recently developed technique that uses low energy neutral helium atoms as a probe to image the surface of a sample without causing damage. After estimating the variation of source brightness with nozzle size and pressure, we perform a constrained optimisation to determine the optimal geometry of the instrument (i.e. the geometry that maximises intensity) for a given target resolution. For an instrument using a pinhole to form the helium microprobe, the source and atom optics are separable and Lagrange multipliers are used to obtain an analytic expression for the optimal parameters. For an instrument using a zone plate as the focal element, the whole optical system must be considered and a numerical approach has been applied. Unlike previous numerical methods for optimisation, our approach provides insight into the effect and significance of each instrumental parameter, enabling an intuitive understanding of effect of the SHeM geometry. We show that for an instrument with a working distance of 1 mm, a zone plate with a minimum feature size of 25 nm becomes the advantageous focussing element if the desired beam standard deviation is below about 300 nm.The work was supported by EPSRC grant EP/R008272/1. M.B. acknowledges an EPSRC studentship and a Leathersellers Graduate scholarship

An evaluation of the kinematic approximation in helium atom scattering using wavepacket calculations

We use 2-D wavepacket calculations to examine the scattering of helium atoms from dynamic assemblies of surface adsorbates, and in particular to explore the validity of the widely used kinematic scattering approximation. The wavepacket calculations give exact results for quasi-elastic scattering that are closely analogous to time-of-flight (TOF) experiments and they are analysed as such. A scattering potential is chosen to represent 8 meV helium atoms scattering from sodium atoms adsorbed on a Cu(001) surface and the adsorbates in the model move according to an independent Langevin equation. The energy broadening in the quasi-elastic scattering is obtained as a function of parallel momentum transfer and compared with the corresponding results using the kinematic scattering approximation. Under most circumstances the kinematic approximation and the more accurate wavepacket method are in good agreement; however, there are cases where the two methods give different results. We relate these differences to pathological features in the scattering form-factor.EPSRC Studentship, Royal Society University Research Fellowshi

Behaviour of moist and saturated sand during shock and release

Relatively little is known about the changes that occur in the shock compaction and release of granular matter with varying levels of moisture. Here, we report a series of plate impact experiments giving shock Hugoniot and release data for a well characterized sand at dry, 10% moist, and saturated water contents. The results reveal that at low moisture content the shock impedance is slightly reduced, while the release remains predominantly inelastic. Close to saturation, much more substantial changes occur: the shock impedance stiffens substantially, the Hugoniot appears to split into two branches, and the release becomes almost completely elastic. We discuss mechanisms underpinning these changes in behavior.This work was supported through the Force Protection Engineering research programme led by QinetiQ Plc. on behalf of DSTL.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from AIP via http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.493468

The significance of grain morphology and moisture content on the response of silica sand to ballistic penetration

The dynamic response of sand is of interest for a wide range of applications, from civil engineering to asteroid impact, in addition to defense and industrial processes. Granular dynamics are controlled by a complex network of intergrain force chains; yet, our understanding of how grain morphology, moisture, rate, and loading geometry affect the response to rapid compaction remains limited. Here, we show how just 1% moisture can significantly reduce penetration resistance in silica sand, while smoother-grained material—with a similar bulk density, grain size, and mineralogy—exhibits markedly improved stopping power. Cylindrical targets are impacted by spherical steel projectiles, with Digital Speckle Radiography employed to determine both the penetration depth and the sand bed displacement at a series of incremental time steps after impact. The results provide substantial insight into how slight adjustments to grain-grain contact points can affect the bulk dynamic response of brittle granular materials.</jats:p

Shock Compression of Simulated Adobe

A series of plate impact experiments were conducted to investigate the shock response of a simulant for adobe, a traditional form of building material widely used around the world. Air dried bricks were sourced from the London brick company, dry machined and impacted at a range of velocities in a single stage gas gun. The shock Hugoniot was determined (Us =2.26up+0.37) as well as release information. The material was found to behave in a manner which was similar to that of loose sand and considerably less stiff than a weak porous sandstone. The effect of any cementing of the grains was examined by shocking powdered samples contained within a cell arrangement.The research was funded by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (part of UK MoD) under the Weapons Science and Technology Centre

PIGLE — Particles Interacting in Generalized Langevin Equation simulator

We present a package using Simulink and MATLAB to perform molecular dynamics simulations of interacting particles obeying a Generalized Langevin Equation. The package, which accounts for three spatial dimensions and rigid-body like rotation, is tuned to explore surface diffusion of co-adsorbed species. The physical parameters are species specific, and include userdefined colored noise spectra and memory friction kernels acting independently on translational and rotational degrees of freedom. We benchmark the simulations using established analytical results for dynamical correlation functions, and we use the package to numerically verify novel analytical results concerning dissipative rotational motion and mutli-exponential friction kernels. The package provides a straight-forward way to expand the modeling of ultra-fast surface diffusion problems at the atomic scale.Herchel Smith Fund, Blavatnik Foundatio

True-to-size surface mapping with neutral helium atoms

Three-dimensional mapping of microscopic surface structures is important in many applications of technology and research, including areas as diverse as microfluidics, MEMS and geoscience. How- ever on the nanoscale, using established techniques for such imaging can be extremely challenging. Scanning helium microscopy (SHeM) is a new technique that uses neutral helium atoms as a probe, enabling completely non-destructive imaging. The technique is broadly applicable and ideal for many otherwise difficult to image materials such as insulators, ultra-thin nano-coatings and biological sam- ples. Here we present a method for implementation and operation of a stereo helium microscope, by applying the photometric stereo method of surface reconstruction to helium microscopy. Four detectors around the sample are typically required, but we show how sample rotation can be used to perform stereo reconstruction with a single detector instrument, or to improve the quality of the reconstructed surface by increasing the number of independent measurements. We examine the quality of the reconstructed surface and show that for low aspect ratio good absolute height is recovered. For features with height/width ∼ 1 the shape of the surface is still recovered well (8% error) despite multiple scattering and masking of the helium beam by surface topography. Therefore it is possible to perform accurate reconstruction of the shape of nanoscale structures with a height to width ratio of at least unity.SM Lambrick acknowledges funding from Mathworks Lt