Microjetting from a grooved Al surface under supported and unsupported shocks

Using molecular dynamics methods, we simulate and compare the microjetting from a grooved Al surface induced by supported and unsupported shocks at different breakout pressures. Via the analysis on the microjetting morphologies and mass distributions, we find that the threshold of shock breakout pressure for the microjetting formation is almost same, but the variation of microjet mass with shock pressure shows a great difference for the two loading patterns. Under supported shock loading, the microjet mass keeps a continuous increase with increasing shock pressure, and release melting can enhance it markedly. By contrast, the microjet mass under unsupported shocks is smaller and seems no remarkable increase with shock pressure in our simulations (at extremely short pulses), implying the shock decaying can weaken the microjetting. Of course, a large area of fragments near the surface may form in this case. The microjet source distributions corresponding to supported and unsupported shocks are presented. It is found that the former becomes apparently broader than the latter with increasing shock pressure. Besides, the microjet tip velocity under supported shocks may appear a reduction because of the material strength effect below release melting. While under unsupported shocks, all the microjets in solid and melted states will experience the reduction of tip velocity. These decrements of tip velocity can be fitted by an exponential function.