Rapid Penetration into Granular Media
Visualizing the Fundamental Physics of Rapid Earth Penetration

Rapid Penetration into Granular Media: Visualizing the Fundamental Physics of Rapid Penetration introduces readers to the variety of methods developed to visualize, observe, and model the rapid penetration of natural and man-made projectiles into earth materials while providing seasoned practitioners with a standard reference that showcases the topic's most recent developments in research and application.

There has been a flurry of recently funded research both in the U.S. and Europe on studying the behavior of projectiles in granular media. This book compiles the findings of recent research on the subject and outlines the fundamental physics of rapid earth penetration, and assembles a comprehensive collection of experimental and numerical techniques to study the problem.

• Introduction
• Behavior of Granular Media Under High Strain-Rate Loading
• Micromechanical Behavior of Sand Learned from Multiscale Kolsky Bar Experiments
• High-Speed Penetration of Granular Geomaterials
• Global Observations & Post Mortem Analysis of Penetration in Sand
• In Situ Characterization of Projectile Penetration into Sand
• The Use of Digital Speckle Radiography to Investigate the Internal Flow Fields During the Ballistic Penetration of Sand
• Multimodal Radiation Based Tomography and Diffraction of Granular Materials Using Neutrons and Photons and Instrumented Penetration Mechanics
• Grain-Scale Measurements During Low Velocity Impact in Granular Media
• Granular Impact: A Grain-scale Approach
• Refractive Index Matching: Microstructure Evolution During Impact Using Refractive Index-Matched Granular Matter
• Mesoscale Observations of Dynamic Penetration in Granular Media Using Transparent Soils
• Summary and Conclusions

scientists in the fields of earth and planetary science, ballistics, soft matter physics, and physics of granular media, as well as industry professionals in ballistics, petroleum exploration, and aerospace engineering.

Iskander served as Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-PI on over $12 Million of research and educational grants and contracts, including the NSF CAREER Award. He is a Fellow of The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Dr. Iskander authored 4 books, edited 10 books, and published over 150 papers. He graduated 9 doctoral and 31 masters’ students.
Stephan Bless, ScD, F.APS, F.IBS, is a Research Professor in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University Polytechnic School of

Engineering. Before joining NYU he was Head of the Hypervelocity Effects Division at the University of Texas Institute for Advanced Technology. He is an expert in impact effects and the dynamic behavior of materials, with extensive publications in shock physics, terminal ballistics, and strength of materials. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the International Ballistics Society. He can be reached at sbless@nyu.edu.
Mehdi Omidvar, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Manhattan College. He received his PhD from New York University, where he studied the macro and micro scale behavior of natural and artificial sands to rapid penetration. He has published over 30 articles dealing with granular mechanics, soil dynamics, and nonlinear dynamics.

• Presents a comprehensive interdisciplinary review of the latest research developments in the response of granular media to impact and impulsive loading
• Combines the experience of prominent researchers from different disciplines focusing on the challenges presented by impact loading of granular media
• Introduces recently developed methods for visualizing the fundamental physics of rapid penetration into granular media