Modeling and Experimental Validation of Shockwave Propagation in Aluminum Plates

A physics-based model has been developed to determine the material velocities within an Al plate from shock waves generated by a high-energy laser. This model leads to the calculation of the stresses at the cladding-cladding interface within fuel plates which allows for the direct comparison of bond strength between fuel plates with different geometries and material compositions. The ability for direct comparison between plates will allow for straightforward process feedback on bond integrity from dissimilar fuel plates. The velocity signals generated by the physics-based model reasonably track the experimental data which show matching HEL, maximum velocity, reflections, and attenuation signatures. The stresses within the Al plate estimated by a Finite Element Model (FEM) from the calculated velocity output have an artifact that makes the magnitude of the tensile stress larger than in reality. A solution to this artifact is being developed.