Experimental developments to obtain real-time x-ray diffraction measurements in plate impact experiments

An experimental facility was developed to obtain real-time, quantitative, x-ray diffraction data in laboratory plate impact experiments. A powder gun, to generate plane wave loading in samples, was designed and built specifically to permit flash x-ray diffraction measurements in shock-compression experiments. Spatial resolution and quality of the diffracted signals were improved significantly over past attempts through partial collimation of the incident beam and the use of two-dimensional detectors to record data from shocked crystals. The experimental configuration and synchronization issues are discussed, and relevant details of the x-ray system and the powder gun are described. Representative results are presented from experiments designed to determine unit cell compression in shock-compressed LiF single crystals subjected to both elastic and elastic-plastic deformation, respectively. The developments described here are expected to be useful for examining lattice deformation and structural changes in shock wave compression studies. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(99)04410-X].