Two-wave structures in shock-induced martensitic phase transitions

We consider a class of shock-loading experiments which, as a result of solid-to-solid phase transitions, give rise to certain characteristic patterns consisting of two shock-like waves. We show that the single assumption that stresses in a phase cannot lie beyond the transition boundaries leads to a complete mathematical description of the physical problem at hand. In detail, our model only requires knowledge of well-studied material observables: the equations of state (EOS) for the pure phases and the phase transition boundaries. The model presented here is different from others proposed in the literature: it does not make use of kinetic relations, and it accounts for the observed wave histories without parameter fitting. In presence of well-accepted EOS for the pure phases, our model leads to close quantitative agreement with a wide range of experimental results.