Experimental investigation of fragments recovered from a laser shock-loaded tin

Dynamic fragmentation of metal under shock pressure is an important issue for both fundamental science and practical applications such as diagnostic equipment protection from fragment ejection of Au hohlraum in indirect drive laser fusion experiments, but the characteristic parameters of the fragments are scarce due to the limitation of dynamic diagnosis. In this paper we performed the laser-driven shock-loaded experiments at the Shenguang-III (SGIII) prototype laser facility, and a very low density (200mgcm^-3) of poly4-methyl-pentene (PMP) foam set behind the free surface of the laser loading tin sample was used as a soft recovery device. The pressure near the free surface of the sample ranges from 9 to 43GPa. With our recently proposed method of detecting fragments within soft recovery devices, the fragment parameters of size, shape and penetration depth can be determined by x-ray micro-tomography and computed tomography reconstruction. Experimental results demonstrated that different dynamic failure mechanisms have great impact on the fragment parameters.