Hypervelocity launch capabilities (9 - 16 km/s) with macroscopic plates have become available in recent years. It is now feasible to conduct instrumented plane-wave tests using this capability. Successfully conducting such tests requires a planar launch and impact at hypervelocities, appropriate triggering for recording systems, and time-resolved measurements of motion or stress at a particular point or set of points within the target or projectile during impact. We have conducted the first time-resolved wave-profile experiments using velocity interferometric techniques at impact velocities of 10 km/s. These measurements show that aluminum continues to exhibit normal release behavior to 161 cpa shock pressure, with complete loss of strength of the shocked state. These experiments have allowed a determination of shockwave window transparency in conditions produced by a hypervelocity impact. In particular, lithium fluoride appears to lose transparency at a shock stress of 200 GPa; this appears to be the upper limit for conventional wave profile measurements using velocity interferometric techniques. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
