Shock compression/release of magnesium single crystals along a low-symmetry orientation: Role of basal slip

To gain insights into the relative contributions of different plastic deformation mechanisms, particularly basal slip, for shocked hexagonal close-packed (hcp) metals, magnesium (Mg) single crystals were subjected to shock compression and release along a low-symmetry (LS) orientation to 1.9 and 4.8 GPa elastic impact stresses. LS-axis is a "nonspecific" direction resulting in propagation of quasilongitudinal and quasishear waves. Wave profiles, measured using laser interferometry, show a small elastic wave followed by two plastic waves in compression; release wave profiles exhibited a structured response for the higher stress and a smooth response for the lower stress. The LS-axis wave profiles are significantly different than profiles published previously for c- and a-axes, demonstrating that Mg single crystals exhibit strong anisotropy under shock compression/release. Numerical simulations, using a time-dependent anisotropic modeling framework, show that shock wave loading along the LS-axis involves the simultaneous operation of multiple deformation mechanisms. Shock compression along LS-axis is dominated by basal slip while prismatic slip and pyramidal I {101 over bar 1}⟨112 over bar 3⟩ slip play a smaller role; coupling between longitudinal and shear deformations was observed. The unloading response is dominated by basal slip with some contribution from prismatic slip; pyramidal I slip is not activated. The present results, unlike results obtained for c- and a-axes, show that the deformation mechanism observed under quasistatic loading conditions along LS-axis is not sufficient to determine the shock response along this orientation. Although requiring numerical simulations for wave analysis, shock propagation along a LS-orientation provides new insights into the plastic deformation response of hcp metal single crystals.