Random walk of dislocations following a high-velocity impact

The permanent distortion of an elastic material due to a shock wave generated by a high-velocity impact is modeled by a random walk of dislocations. The dislocation movement is inhibited by a spatial and energetic distribution of activation barriers. The dislocations also experience a radially outward stress bias from the point of impact. The experimentally observed scaling of the total integrated momentum as well as the scaling with time of the penetration distance and strength of the shock wave are obtained in this model.Presented at the Symposium on Random Walks, Gaithersburg, MD, June 1982.Research supported by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.