Femtosecond quantification of void evolution during rapid material failure

James Coakley, Andrew Higginbotham, David McGonegle, Jan Ilavsky, Thomas D. Swinburne, Justin S. Wark, Khandaker M. Rahman, Vassili A. Vorontsov, David Dye, Thomas J. Lane, Sébastien Boutet, Jason Koglin, Joseph Robinson, Despina Milathianaki

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Understanding high velocity impact, and the subsequent high strain rate material deformation and potential catastrophic failure, is of critical importance across a range of scientific and engineering disciplines that include astrophysics, materials science and aerospace engineering. The deformation and failure mechanisms are not thoroughly understood, given the challenges of experimentally quantifying material evolution at extremely short time-scales. Here, copper foils are rapidly strained via picosecond laser ablation and probed in situ with femtosecond x-ray free electron (XFEL) pulses. Small angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) monitors the void distribution evolution while wide angle scattering (WAXS) simultaneously determines the strain evolution. The ability to quantifiably characterize the nanoscale during high strain rate failure with ultrafast-SAXS, complementing WAXS, represents a broadening in the range of science that can be performed with XFEL. It is shown that ultimate failure occurs via void nucleation, growth and coalescence, and the data agree well with molecular dynamics simulations.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbereabb4434
Number of pages10
JournalScience Advances
Volume6
Issue number51
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Dec 2020

Keywords

  • material failure
  • dynamics simulations
  • high velocity impact

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