Hot Spots from Dislocation Pile-up Avalanches

The model of hot spots developed at dislocation pile-up avalanches has been employed to explain both: greater drop- weight heights being required to initiate chemical decomposition of smaller crystals [1]; and, the susceptibility to shear banding of energetic and reference inert materials, for example, adiabatic shear banding in steel [2]. The evidence for RDX (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine) is that few dislocations are needed in the pile-ups thus providing justification for assessing dynamic pile-up release on a numerical basis for few dislocation numbers [3]. For release from a viscous obstacle, previous and new computations lead to a local temperature plateau occurring at the origin of pile-up release [4], in line with the physical concept of a hot spot. [1] R.W. Armstrong, C.S. Coffey, V.F. DeVost and W.L. Elban, J. Appl. Phys. 68 (1990) 979. [2] R.W. Armstrong and F.J. Zerilli, Mech. Mater. 17 (1994) 319. [3] R.W. Armstrong, Proc. Eighth Intern. Seminar: New Trends in Research of Energetic Materials, April 19- 21, 2005, Pardubice, CZ. [4] W.R. Grise, NRC/AFOSR Summer Faculty Fellowship Program, AFRL/MNME, Eglin Air Force Base, FL, 2003.