Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Shocks including Electronic Heat Conduction and Electron-phonon Coupling

Shocks are often simulated using the classical molecular dynamics (MD) method in which the electrons are not included explicitly and the interatomic interaction is described by an effective potential. As a result, the fast electronic heat conduction in metals and the coupling between the lattice vibrations and the electronic degrees of freedom can not be represented. Under conditions of steep temperature gradients that can form near the shock front, however, the electronic heat conduction can play an important part in redistribution of the thermal energy in the shocked target. We present the first atomistic simulation of a shock propagation including the electronic heat conduction and electronphonon coupling. The computational model is based on the two-temperature model (TTM) that describes the time evolution of the lattice and electron temperatures by two coupled non-linear differential equations. In the combined TTM-MD method, MD substitutes the TTM equation for the lattice temperature. Simulations are performed with both MD and TTM-MD models for an EAM Al target shocked at 300 kbar. The target includes a tilt grain boundary, which provides a region where shock heating is more pronounced and, therefore, the effect of the electronic heat conduction is expected to be more important. We find that the differences between the predictions of the MD and TTM-MD simulations are significantly smaller as compared to the hydrodynamics calculations performed at similar conditions with and without electronic heat conduction.