Ultra-high strain rate behavior of FCC nanostructures

This work addresses the influence of ultra-high strain rates loading observed in our world today via ballistics, explosions and astrophysical collisions on well-defined metal structures. There is a plentiful amount of research examining metals at a macroscopic level that are subjected to ballistics and explosions but observing the microstructure is difficult as those procedures are fairly destructive testing mechanisms. Therefore, to understand the true mechanisms that occur in these loading situations a more novel technique is necessary. Modifications were made to the Laser Spallation Technique in order to load structures under a single transient wave pulse. This study characterized FCC nanostructures shock loaded at extreme pressures, strain rates and temperatures. By utilizing nanostructures, extremely large values of stain could be produced within the structure. It was first observed that at lower laser fluence levels and subsequently low stress states that there was a chemical activation of the surface of Cu nanopillars. This occurred due to nanofacet formation on the surface of the nanopillars which left pristine Cu surfaces to recombine with the environment. Dislocation motion was also observed and clearly identified in Cu nanopillars, Cu nanobenches and Al nanopillars. Further studies analyzed Cu nanopillars subjected to higher laser fluence generated stress waves, which led to bending and axial shortening deformation. These deformations were observed at laser fluence values of 144 kJ/m2 for bending and 300 kJ/m 2 for bulging similar to that of Taylor Impact experiments. To explore an even more extreme loading environment, a specialized test setup was employed to cryogenically cool the copper nanopillars to a temperature of 83K in an attempt to elucidate brittle behavior. Under these loading conditions the nanopillars continued to deform in a ductile manner but with delayed onset of both bending deformation and bulging deformation compared to the room temperature counterpart. Finally, the mechanical behavior of the Cu nanopillars was studied by nanocompression testing and compared to that of a reference nanopillar from the same substrate. The mechanical properties of the copper pillars were improved at lower laser fluence levels. At higher laser fluence levels, the tests were inconclusive as slight bending of the shock loaded Cu nanopillars rendered the comparison to the non-deformed reference nanopillar inconclusive.