Jetting during vertical impacts of spherical projectiles

The extreme pressures reached during jetting, a process by which material is squirted out from the contact point of two colliding objects, causes melting and vaporization at low impact velocities. Jetting is a major source of melting in shocked porous material, a potential source of tektites, a possible origin of chondrules, and even a conceivable origin of the Moon. Here, in an attempt to quantify the importance of jetting, we present numerical simulation of jetting during the vertical impacts of spherical projectiles on both flat and curved targets. We find that impacts on curved targets result in more jetted material but that higher impact velocities result in less jetted material. For an aluminum impactor striking a flat Al target at 2 km/s we find that 3.4% of a projectile mass is jetted while 8.3% is jetted for an impact between two equal sized Al spheres. Our results indicate that the theory of jetting during the collision of thin plates can be used to predict the conditions when jetting will occur. However, we find current analytic models do not make accurate predictions of the amount of jetted mass. Our work indicates that the amount of jetted mass is independent of model resolution as long as some jetted material is resolved. This is the result of lower velocity material dominating the mass of the jet. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.