Atomistic simulation of shocks in single crystal and polycrystalline Ta*

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of shocks in Ta single crystals and polycrystals were carried out using up to 360 million atoms. Several EAM and FS type potentials were tested up to 150 GPa, with varying success reproducing the Hugoniot and the behavior of elastic constants under pressure. Phonon modes were studied to exclude possible plasticity nucleation by soft-phonon modes, as observed in MD simulations of Cu crystals. The effect of loading rise time in the resulting microstructure was studied for ramps up to 0.2 ns long. Dislocation activity was not observed in single crystals, unless there were defects acting as dislocation sources above a certain pressure.