Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Atomistic mechanism for hot spot initiation.

Brad Lee Holian1, Timothy C Germann, Jean-Bernard Maillet

  • 1Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.

Physical Review Letters
|January 7, 2003
PubMed
Summary

Shock waves interacting with microscopic voids cause extreme heating, initiating reactions in explosives or phase transitions in metals. This occurs due to vaporization, vapor stagnation, and gas recompression within the void.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

When heating isn't cooling in reverse: Nosé-Hoover thermostat fluctuations from equilibrium symmetry to nonequilibrium asymmetry.

The Journal of chemical physics·2026
Same author

Chaos in nonequilibrium two-temperature (Tx, Ty) Nosé-Hoover cell models.

The Journal of chemical physics·2025
Same author

Simulating nationwide coupled disease and fear spread in an agent-based model.

Scientific reports·2025
Same author

Carbon-rich foam formation in the early stages of detonation of 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB).

The Journal of chemical physics·2025
Same author

Going beyond an old shockwave conjecture for improving upon Navier-Stokes.

Physical review. E·2024
Same author

Cost effectiveness of preemptive school closures to mitigate pandemic influenza outbreaks of differing severity in the United States.

BMC public health·2024

Area of Science:

  • Shock wave physics
  • Materials science
  • Computational chemistry

Background:

  • Microscopic voids in materials can significantly influence their response to shock waves.
  • Understanding void-shock interactions is crucial for predicting material behavior under extreme conditions.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To elucidate the mechanism of thermal runaway in shock-compressed materials containing microscopic voids.
  • To investigate the role of void geometry and shock strength in generating localized high temperatures (hot spots).

Main Methods:

  • Atomistic simulations of a two-dimensional Lennard-Jones solid model.
  • Analysis of shock wave propagation, material vaporization, vapor stagnation, and gas recompression dynamics.
  • Comparison of simulation results with a theoretical model for thermal overshoot.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Demonstrated that shock-induced vaporization into voids, followed by vapor stagnation and recompression, leads to significant temperature increases.
  • Identified shock strength and void gap width as critical parameters controlling the thermal overshoot.
  • Observed hot spot generation consistent with thermal initiation of reactions or phase transitions.

Conclusions:

  • Shock wave interactions with voids provide a viable mechanism for generating localized high temperatures in materials.
  • The findings offer insights into the initiation of chemical reactions in explosives and phase transitions in metals under shock loading.