The scientific method

The present chapter gives an overview of experimental platforms showing how they may be used to populate models for materials behaviour. The condensed phase defines the pressure and temperature range of interest, which may be approximately fixed at less than 1 TPa and below 10000 K. Indeed pressure has one of the largest ranges of all physical parameters in the universe (the pressure in a neutron star is c. 1033 Pa), so that most of the materials in nature are under conditions very different from those on Earth. The goal of shock experiments is to track response and mechanisms across the realms of stress and volume that are experienced by condensed-phase matter across the universe. At the highest pressures and temperatures, materials move from the solid to the liquid and then to plasma states as new correlations and bonding are formed. These high-density states have been termed warm dense matter (WDM) and lie beyond the finis extremis – outside the regime of extreme behaviour considered here. A summary of the phase space occupied by matter in these regions is shown in Figure 3.1.

The goal of experimental work is to provide adequate knowledge of the response of matter over the operating regimes of the relevant plasticity mechanisms. By this means, analytical descriptions can be constructed to try and capture the fundamental relationships between the independent variables – stress and stress state, strain and strain rate, and temperature – that determine the constitutive, damage and failure behaviour of materials. A shock impulse provides a pump to drive materials deformation and control of that impulse also allows a window into the operative mechanisms that lead to plasticity and damage evolution. This includes determining dynamic strength as a function of pressure as well as determining equation of state over the range of interest for particular applications.