Viscosity of aluminum under shock-loading conditions

A reliable data treatment method is critical for viscosity measurements using the disturbance amplitude damping method of shock waves. In this paper the finite difference method is used to obtain the numerical solutions for the disturbance amplitude damping behaviour of the sinusoidal shock front in a flyer-impact experiment. The disturbance amplitude damping curves are used to depict the numerical solutions of viscous flow. By fitting the experimental data to the numerical solutions of different viscosities, we find that the effective shear viscosity coefficients of shocked aluminum at pressures of 42, 78 and 101 GPa are (1500±100) Pa · s, (2800±100) Pa · s and (3500±100) Pa · s respectively. It is clear that the shear viscosity of aluminum increases with an increase in shock pressure, so aluminum does not melt below a shock pressure of 101 GPa. This conclusion is consistent with the sound velocity measurement.