Deformation and void nucleation under shock loading

This is work by Vladimir Stegailov and Alexey Yanilkin (Joint Institute for High Temperatures, Russian Academy of Sciences) on plastic deformation and void nucleation in a single crystal of shock loaded bcc iron.

The picture shows successive stages of the shock-wave loading of a single crystal of bcc iron. During compression, pulse propagation plastic deformation takes place near the lateral open surfaces (only one of the two surfaces is shown because of the symmetry). It results in formation of inhomogeneities that act as void nucleation sites during spallation during the rarefaction wave. The visualization was done with the AtomEye program.