Wave structure measurement and analysis in hypervelocity impact experiments

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Abstract
The impact of a single low-density sphere on an aluminum target was analyzed with two-dimensional finite difference wave propagation codes. The results of these analyses are compared with experimental measurements of the target back-surface velocity history. An improved basis for establishing how closely a given equation-of-state and failure description represent the real material behavior is thereby achieved. In the experiments, measurements were made with the diffuse surface velocity interferometer. The experimental technique was sufficiently refined so that a sphere impacted within a 6-mm radius of the aiming point after a free flight of ∼15 m at ∼5 km/s. Sphere diameter and target thickness were varied in constant ratio so that a single calculation could be scaled to provide numerical results for comparisons with three different experiments. The final target configurations in these experiments make it clear, however, that uniform geometric scaling does not apply in the present case.