Modeling the damage evolution and recompression behavior during laser shock loading of aluminum microstructures at the mesoscales

Damage evolution in metals during laser-shock loading (spallation) is a complex phenomenon accompanied by extremely high temperatures, pressures, and strain rates that affect the void nucleation/growth mechanisms. The current modeling efforts at the atomic scales to investigate the evolution of microstructure undergoing the spall failure at the atomic scales are limited to a hybrid atomistic–continuum method that combines the two-temperature model (TTM) with the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. This manuscript demonstrates this capability by investigating the mechanisms of nucleation/evolution of voids for a nanocrystalline Al system experiencing an ultrafast laser pulse. This capability, however, is unable to model the laser shock response of experimental systems (with grain sizes greater than 100 nm and thicknesses in the microns) as well as the post-spall behavior (damage growth or recompression behavior). This work combines the TTM with the quasi-coarse-grained dynamics (QCGD) method to extend MD-TTM simulations to the mesoscales. The hybrid QCGD-TTM approach retains the laser energy absorption, heat generation/transfer, and microstructure evolution (melting, defects, and damage) behavior predicted by MD-TTM simulations. The QCGD-TTM simulations allow the investigation of the wave propagation behavior, the evolution of microstructure (defects and damage), temperature, and pressure at the time and length scales of laser-shock experiments. The QCGD-TTM simulations reported here investigate the nucleation and post-spall damage evolution behavior during spall failure of sc-Al and 0.5 µm grain-sized pc-Al films with a thickness of up to 2 µm. The QCGD-TTM-predicted damage evolution behavior captures the post-spall behavior observed experimentally and retains the atomistic characteristics of void nucleation and void collapse.