In the 1950s explosives began to be used to generate ultrahigh pressures in condensed substances in order to modify their properties and structure. Notwithstanding the short duration of an explosion, its energy proved to be high enough to perform physical-chemical transformations of substances, and the new method gained wide industrial applications. It has both advan tages and drawbacks in comparison with the traditional method of static compression. The latter method, notorious for its cumbersome and expensive machin ery, allows one to maintain high pressure as long as one pleases and to regu late the temperature of the sample arbitrarily. But, the pressure available is rather limited and for any increase of this limit one has to pay by the progres sive shrinking of the working volume of a press. The dynamic method has the advantages of low cost and practically no restrictions of magnitude of pressure and the size of a processed sample, but the temperature in a compressed body is no longer controlled by an experi mentor. Rather, it is firmly dictated by the level of loading, according to the equation of state. Hence, it is difficult to recover metastable products and impossible to prepare solids with a low concentration of defects as the dura tion of explosion is too short for their elimination.

Klappentext

The use of explosives to generate ultrahigh pressures and thereby modify the structure and properties of condensed matter began in the 1950s and has since then become an important area of science. This book discusses the physical principles and experimental techniques of shock compression as applied to problems of inorganic chemistry and materials science. It begins with the fundamental physics of shock waves, the dynamic compressibility of solids, and physical and chemical transformations that may be produced by a shock. The second chapter turns to the experimental conditions for measurements and the preparation of ampoules. Subsequent chapters discuss: microstructural changes, such as fragmentation, shock hardening, and shock compaction; phase transformations in graphite, oxides, metals, and other materials; and chemical transformations, including mass transfer, decomposition, and diamond synthesis.

Inhalt

1. Foundations of the Physics of Shock Waves.- 2. Ampoules for Recovery of Shock-Loaded Products.- 3. Mechanical Characteristics and Microstructural Changes of Solids Under Shock Compression.- 4. Changing Atomic Structure by Shock Compression.- 5. Chemical Transformations in Shock Compression.- 6. Detonation Transformation and Diamond Synthesis.- Conclusion.- References.- Substance Index.