ASC Image Library
Expanding Tube Fragmentation
This is a simulation of a gas gun-driven expanding tube tragmentation experiment on tantalum. The simulation was a run using the crystal plasticity model which naturally picked up nonuniformities in deformation and the beginning of strain localization. Contours of equivalent plastic strain are shown. The target sample is the object on the right and the “anvil” is the object to the left. In the experiments, a tube of tantalum that is half filled with lexan is impacted by a lexan projectile fired from a gas gun at 1.87 km/s. The projectile slips into the cylindrical test sample, shocking and compressing the lexan that half fills the tube causeing a rapid radial expansion of the sample cylinder. The target tube rests up against an anvil which prevents the gas gun projectile from penetrating the wall of the target chamber. (Courtesy: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.)