Multiscale modeling of the anisotropic shock response of β-HMX molecular polycrystals

In this paper we develop a fully anisotropic pressure and temperature dependent model to investigate the effect of the microstructure on the shock response of B-HMX molecular single and polycrystals. This micromechanics-based model can account for crystal orientation as well as crystallographic twinning and slip during deformation and has been calibrated using existing gas gun data. We observe that due to the high degree of anisotropy of these polycrystals, certain orientations are more favorable for plastic deformation – and therefore defect and dislocation generation – than others. Loading along these directions results in highly localized deformation and temperature fields. This observation confirms that most of the temperature rise during high rates of loading is due to plastic deformation or dislocation pile up at microscale and not due to volumetric changes.