High gas pressure acceleration of flier plates - experimental techniques

A facility has been developed for conducting experiments on the launching of flat plates to hypervelocities using dricing gas pressures in the range of 40 to 300 GPa. The facility, the instrumentation, and the experimental techniques are described. Launches of flier plates made of W, Ta, Mo, Al, and Lexan have resulted in the disintegration of the flying plate, but a 21-gram Ti-6Al-4V plate has been launched intact to 5.8 km/s. Pressure nonuniformities in the driving gas are a primary cause of the disintegration of most flier plates. Sources of the nonuniformities are discussed, and experiments to decrease them are described.