Evaluating Aluminum Oxynitride Under Shock Compression

High density transparent materials such as glass or ceramics are widely used in shock compression experiments to be able to observe the shock phenomena within a test sample. Aluminum oxynitride (ALON) is a good candidate material for applications where Sapphire glass is commonly used, but its properties under shock compression compared to Sapphire are not fully characterized. In this work, we investigate the shock response of ALON subject to shock loading conditions using plate impact experiments. Experiments were performed in single stage light gas gun at varied impact velocities to understand the dynamic response in the pressure range from 0.5 to 20 Gpa. Shock properties of ALON are reported and compared to the ones of Sapphire under the same loading conditions.