Towards materials at extremes: from intense dynamic compression to expansion

Introduction

The project aims at developing robust, reliable, and effective techniques for the generation of extreme conditions. Positive TPa as well as negative MPa pressures in liquids will be produced with limited resources available in everyday research environments.

Integration of Approaches

The project offers a unique integration of approaches and resources in high voltage engineering and plasma physics applications towards classical problems of compressible fluid mechanics.

Research Methods

It investigates by experiment, computation, and theory the major physical properties of imploding shock waves in liquids and offers approaches to enhance the efficiency of focal energy concentration.

Novel Method Development

The project develops a novel method for the generation of imploding rarefaction waves, a well-controlled scenario that provides exactly the opposite range of extreme conditions, namely negative pressures in liquids.

Research Facility

The approaches comprise a single generator facility that opens research on a broad spectrum of basic-to-applied subjects, promising a long-term investment towards studies of materials at extremes.

Application Focus

The facility is applied to a selected subject of mechanical treatment of cellulose fibers, aiming at enhancing the efficiency of fibers disintegration, homogenization, and fibrillation processes by applying, both selectively and combined, compression and tension pulses on a broad range of intensities, from strong to extreme.