Silica glass structural properties under elastic shock compression: Experiments and molecular simulations

Richard Renou (1) , Laurent Soulard (1) , Emilien Lescoute (1) , Corentin Dereure (2) , Didier Loison (2) , Jean-Pierre Guin (2)

1 DAM/DIF - DAM Île-de-France
2 IPR - Institut de Physique de Rennes

The behavior of silica glass material under shock compression has been investigated in this work. Laser driven experiments and molecular dynamics simulations were combined to study the elastic regime of fused silica up to 8 GPa. Two simple pair potentials,. BKS and CHIK, were tested and the shocked states of the glassy material were obtained by direct shocks and a new Hugoniostat method. The Hugoniot curves obtained numerically were in a very good agreement with the experimental curves. Despite the simplicity of their mathematical form, the pair potentials tested (BKS and CHIK) were able to give a fair description of the silica glass behavior under shock loading conditions. The structural properties of silica glass were also thoroughly studied. It was found that in the elastic regime, the short-range order (tetrahedra) and the medium-range order (rings) were not impacted by the shock wave propagation inside the material. The structural changes behind the shock front were mainly related to a free volume closing mechanism highlighting the importance of free volume analysis in silica glass materials.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Mechanics [physics]; Mechanics of materials [physics.class-ph]

Richard Renou, Laurent Soulard, Emilien Lescoute, Corentin Dereure, Didier Loison, et al.. Silica glass structural properties under elastic shock compression: Experiments and molecular simulations. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2017, 121 (24), pp.13324-13334. ⟨10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b01324⟩. ⟨hal-01560001⟩