Failure in a shocked high-density glass

One of the outstanding questions concerning the compressive behavior of brittle materials concerns the failure wave observed in glasses. While much work has centered around relatively open structure, low density glasses such as borosilicate (pyrex) and soda-lime (float, which is partially filled), none has addressed the response of highly filled lead glasses. This work presents the results of a series of plate impact experiments carried out on the lead glass DEDF.(TM) This material was shocked in uniaxial strain and the longitudinal and lateral components of stress and strain were measured, The failure wave, observed in lower density glasses, was observed in this material but its velocity reached that of the shock at less than twice the Hugoniot elastic limit (HEL). (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.