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The Role of Multiple Polytypes in Determining the Catastrophic Failure of Boron Carbide at High Shock Velocities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Giovanni Fanchini
Affiliation:
fanchini@rci.rutgers.edu, Rutgers University, Materials Science and Engineering, 607 Taylor Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, United States, 732 445 3812, 732 445 3258
James W McCauley
Affiliation:
mccauley@arl.army.mil, United States
Dale E Niesz
Affiliation:
niesz@rci.rutgers.edu, United States
Manish Chhowalla
Affiliation:
manish1@rci.rutgers.edu, United States
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Abstract

The absence of a plastic phase in boron carbide and its failure at shock impact velocities just above the Hugoniot elastic limit (HEL) has been a puzzle for a long time. In the present work, using self-consistent field density functional simulations we are able to account for many experimental observations by noticing that several boron carbide polytypes [(B11C)C2B, (B12)C3, etc …] coexist without significant lattice distortions. Our analysis also indicates that above a threshold pressure all the candidate microstructures are less stable than a phase involving segregated boron (B12) and amorphous carbon (a-C) but the energetic barrier between boron carbide and B12 + 3C, is by far lower for the B12(CCC) microstructure, requiring the lowest atomic displacement for a transformation B4C→3B+a-C, occurring at pressures of 6 GPa = P(HEL). For such a configuration, segregation of free carbon occurs in layers orthogonal to the (113) lattice directions, in excellent agreement with recent transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2006

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