Threshold for plasma phase transition of aluminum single crystal induced by hypervelocity impact

Molecular dynamics method is used to study the threshold for plasma phase transition of aluminum single crystal induced by hypervelocity impact. Two effective simulation methods, piston-driven method and multi-scale shock technique, are used to simulate the shock wave. The simulation results from the two methods agree well with the experimental data, indicating that the shock wave velocity is linearly dependent on the particle velocity. The atom is considered to be ionized if the increase of its internal energy is larger than the first ionization energy. The critical impact velocity for plasma phase transition is about 13.0 km/s, corresponding to the threshold of pressure and temperature which is about 220 GPa and 11.0 x 10(3) K on the shock Hugoniot, respectively. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.