Hypervelocity impact heating of porous aluminum
Estimates of the thermal energy and other properties of the postshock condition are obtained for porous aluminum targets impacted by iron or aluminum projectiles, in the shock pressure range between about 0.4 and 8 Mbar. The starting point is the determination of a distinct Hugoniot equation for each value of porosity, from available experimental data. Rankine-Hugoniot equations and a Mie-Gruneisen equation of state supply the relations necessary for finding the thermodynamic properties of adiabatically relaxed materials. The results are of interest in such fields as ablation studies, meteoritics, and lunar topography.