Plastic deformation, energy dissipation, and initiation of crystalline explosives

This is an effort to understand plastic deformation and energy dissipation in crystalline solids during shock or impact. It builds on recent atomic force microscope observations that plastic flow creates localized distortions in the lattice and molecules of at least some classes of molecular crystals. A distorted lattice potential is developed through which the dislocations responsible for plastic flow move by quantum tunneling. Plastic strain and energy dissipation rates are determined and related to crystal size and damage. These account for plastic flow in crystalline solids and the initiation of chemical reactions in crystalline explosives subjected to shock or impact. The predictions are compared with experiments.