RELEASE ADIABAT MEASUREMENTS ON MINERALS - EFFECT OF VISCOSITY

The current inversion of pressure-particle velocity data for release from a high-pressure shock state to a pressure-density path usually depends critically upon the assumption that the release process is isentropic. It has been shown by Kieffer and Delaney that for geological materials below stresses of similar 150 GPa, the effective viscosity must be less than equivalent to 10**3kg m** minus **1s** minus **1(10**4P) in order that the viscous (irreversible) work carried out on the material in the shock state remains small in comparison to the mechanical work recovered upon adiabatic rarefaction. The available data pertaining to the offset of the Rayleigh line from the Hugoniot curve for minerals, the magnitude of the shear stress in the high-pressure shock state for minerals, and the direct measurements of the viscosities of several engineering materials shocked to pressures below 150 GPa yield effective viscosities of similar 10**3kg m** minus **1s** minus **1 or less. This indicates that the conditions for isentropic release of minerals from shock states are achieved, at least approximately, and that the application of the Riemann integral to obtain pressure-density states along the release adiabats of minerals in shock experiments is valid.