This book is the result of collaboration between the Russian Federal
Nuclear Center - All Russian Scienti?c Research Institute of
Experimental Physics (RFNC-VNIIEF) located in Sarov, Russia and the
University of California - Los Alamos National Laboratory (UC-LANL). The
genesis of this project was the compilation of a set of lecture notes
used by a number of leading VNIIEF researchers in courses taught to
students of the Sarov Physical and Technical
Institute(SarFTI)specializingin"Theoretical andExperimentalMechanics. "
A revised and signi?cantly supplemented version of those lecture notes
was ultimately published as a monograph (in Russian) by VNIIEF Press,
and is used today as a textbook in courses on shock mechanics being
taught at SarFTI. Recognizing the potential bene't of the manuscript to
students and researchers in the ?eld of shock mechanics in the
English-speaking world, a VNIIEF/LANL collaboration was established to
revise/translate/update the manuscript. This book is the result of that
e?ort. Understanding the physical and thermomechanical response of
materials subjected to intensive dynamic loading is a challenge of great
signi?cance in engineering today. When intensive dynamic loads, such as
those that result from the detonation of high explosives (HE),
high-velocity impact, or rapid
localizedheating(suchasmightdevelopunderthee?ectsofincidentlaserlight or
relativistic electron beam), are applied to condensed matter, the result
is a complex pattern of material ?ow involving waves of discontinuous
(shock) as well as continuous (expansion) nature. Shock compression
(followed by expansion) precipitates both reversible and irreversible
physical, physicochemical and mechanical processes in the material.
