On the structure of the Hugoniot relation for a shock-induced martensitic phase transition

The Hugoniot curve relates the pressure and volume behind a shock wave, with the temperature having been eliminated. This paper studies the Hugoniot curve behind a propagating sharp interface between two material phases for a solid in which an impact-induced phase transition has taken place. For a solid capable of existing in only one phase, compressive impact produces a shock wave moving into material, say, at rest in an unstressed state at the ambient temperature. If the specimen can exist in either of two material phases, sufficiently severe impact may produce a disturbance with a two-wave structure: a shock wave in the low-pressure phase of the material, followed by a phase boundary separating the low- and high-pressure phases. We use a theory of phase transitions in thermoelastic materials to construct the Hugoniot curve behind the phase boundary in this two-wave circumstance. The kinetic relation controlling the evolution of the phase transition is an essential ingredient in this process.