Shock wave failure in granular materials

Abstract

Understanding the microstructural features of polycrystalline materials such as high-performance ceramics (HPCs) is a prerequisite for the design of materials with desired superior properties, such as high toughness or strength. On the length scale of a few microns to a few hundreds of microns, many materials such as glass, concrete or ceramics exhibit a polyhedral granular structure which is known to crucially influence their macroscopic mechanical properties. With ceramics, the specific shape and size of these polycrystalline grain structures is formed during a sintering process where atomic diffusion plays a dominant role.