Laser-Driven Plate Impact Technique with Application to Al6061-T6 HEL, Spall, and EOS

Following work performed by the Dlott team (see, among others, [1]–[3]) and also recently by Mallick ([4]–[6]), Southwest Research Institute and Protection Engineering Consultants teamed to design and build a laser-driven plate-impact facility that allows obtaining Hugoniot Elastic Limit, spall stress, and equation of state for different materials. Although the system is in general terms similar to Dlott’s and Mallik’s, several improvements were implemented to obtain more consistent and clear signals, as well as increase throughput. The following differences are highlighted: 1) Sighting system using camera and software to precisely aim with the driving laser at the flyer, 2) System that allows precise alignment of PDV probe, flyer, and driving laser, 3) New algorithm to automatically analyze spectrograms.



A test campaign using Al6061-T6 targets was completed and HEL, spall stress, and equation of state parameters were measured. These results can be directly compared with full-size conventional plate-impact tests performed in 2014 by Southwest Research Institute on a cast version of the same material. Results overall compare well confirming that the laser-driven technique could, in some cases, replace the full-size test and be much more cost effective.



This presentation will summarize the effort by first describing the system as built at the SwRI facility and showing examples of the signals obtained when testing the Al6061. The last part of the presentation will be dedicated to compare results from laser-driven technique and the conventional plate-impact technique.

[1] Banishev et al. J. Dyn. Behav. Mater., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 194–206, 2016.

[2] Curtis, J. Phys. Conf. Ser., vol. 500, no. PART 19, 2014.

[3] Stekovic et al. , J. Appl. Phys., vol. 129, no. 19, pp. 1–11, 2021.

[4] Mallick et al., Procedia Eng., vol. 204, pp. 215–222, 2017.

[5] Mallick et al., Exp. Mech., 2019.

[6] Mallick, et al, J. Dyn. Behav. Mater., vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 268–277, 2020.