Shock-induced plasticity and damage in single-crystalline Cu at elevated temperatures by molecular dynamics simulations

Initial temperature effects on shock responses, including shock-induced plasticity and spalling damage behaviors of single-crystalline Cu are investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. Firstly, initial temperature effects on stress wave profiles are investigated. The simulations show that shock Hugoniot stress deceases as initial temperature increases, which can be explained by the Rakine-Hugoniot conservation theory. Initial temperature effects on dislocation density are studied. It is found that the dislocation density decreases as initial temperature increases. Shock-induced spalling is dominated by cavitation, i.e., void nucleation, growth and coalescence. Initial temperature effects on cavitation are discussed. In cases of relatively low shock intensity, the total number of voids increases as initial temperature rises; for strong shock intensities that induce melting and micro-spalling, initial temperature effects on the total number of voids are not obvious. Furthermore, initial temperature effects on spall strength are found to be dependent on shock intensity. For relatively weak shock intensity, the simulations show that spall strength starts to drop when initial temperature exceeds 900 K, far below the melting temperature, this result is well consistent with previous experimental measurements; however, for high shock intensity, our simulations predict that spall strength decreases monotonically as initial temperature increases. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.