Quantitative Visualization of High-Rate Material Response with Dynamic Proton Radiography

Proton Radiography or pRad was invented at Los Alamos National laboratory employing a very high-energy proton beam to acquire up to 37 images of dynamic experiments often driven by high explosives (HE). The high energy of the beam from the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center’s 800-mega-electron-volt (MeV) proton linear accelerator (LINAC) provides penetrating power sufficient to resolve fine details (~65 μm resolution) in materials and structures under extreme conditions that are difficult to discern with other techniques. Three experiments utilizing pRAD to quantitative visualize the dynamic response of materials are presented. High strain-rate (107 s−1) strength measurements are performed by visualizing a Rayleigh-Taylor unstable interface driven by HE products with pRAD tied to material pedigree, processing and phase changes. High-explosive driven ejecta experiments probing the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability in metals employ pRAD’s ability to visualize the nuances of unstable spike growth with complementary diagnostics. Experiments impacting and penetrating glass probe the anomalous material response and Equation-of-State under a complex three-dimensional loading using both pRAD’s ability to visualize and determine material density. In all three experiments proton radiography provides temporal and spatial visualization of dynamic material deformation and the ability to make in situ measurement of material state.