Relaxation processes in metals at high strain rates

Mathematical modeling is used for experiments involving the loading of plates by plane shock waves to study the relaxation of shear stresses during the high-rate deformation of metallic materials. It is established that the characteristic relaxation times vary broadly — from fractions of a nanosecond to several microseconds. Such variation is indicative of a change in the mechanism responsible for relaxation. As a result, there is a difference between the quasi-equilibrium shear stresses in the elastic precursor and the same stresses behind the shock front. Metallic materials remain capable of resisting plastic deformation behind the front. Structural irregularities created by high-rate deformation result in localization of plastic flow at the microscopic level, which in turn causes the parameters of the stress-strain state at this level to differ from the corresponding parameters on the macroscopic scale.Siberian Physico-Technical Institute, affiliated with Tomsk University. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 8, pp. 82–90, August, 1995.