We study in this paper the different physical processes involved in laser-produced plasma in confined geometry. With this technique, a laser irradiates a target at an intensity of a few GW/cm2, and the produced plasma is confined by a transparent overlay to the laser which covers this target. This configuration has appeared necessary for example for metallurgical applications where, for a given laser energy, enhanced pressures must be realized in order to achieve high shock pressures. Therefore, a physical study of this method is useful in order to optimize this technique. We have first developed an analytical model which describes the different steps involved in this process, points out the interest of this technique, and compares it to the direct ablation regime. In the first stage, during the laser heating, the generated pressure is typically 4–10 times greater than the corresponding one obtained in direct ablation. The second step begins after the switch-off of the laser and is characterized by an adiabatic cooling of the plasma which maintains the applied pressure over a period which is about 2 times the laser-pulse duration. Finally, the third stage concerns also the adiabatic cooling of the recombined plasma, but during this period the exerted pressure is too small to realize a plastic deformation of the material. We show that the impulse momentum given to the target is mainly generated during this step. This model allows us to also determine the velocities of thin foils accelerated with confined plasmas, and we show that very high hydrodynamic efficiencies can be achieved by this technique. Experimentally, we measured with quartz gauges, the pressures obtained in confined geometry, for 30-, 3-, and 0.6-ns laser-pulse duration. This study shows that short pulse durations are sensitive to the initial roughness of the interface, and such an effect should be suppressed by using a liquid confinement. Then, we conclude that a large fraction of the absorbed laser energy (80%–90%) is used for the ionization of the medium in these conditions of irradiation. Finally, we experimentally point out that the laser-induced breakdown of the confining medium is the main mechanism which limits the generated pressure and show the influence of the laser-pulse duration on this effect.

The dynamics of discrete mechanical systems with perfect unilateral constraints is formulated in a very general setting. The well-posedness of the resulting evolution problem is studied. It is proved that existence and uniqueness of a maximal solution is ensured provided strong assumptions on the regularity of the data: they are supposed to be analytic. Simple examples show that this regularity assumption may not be relaxed. Sufficient conditions to ensure that the maximal solution is defined for all time are supplied. The continuous dependence of the solution on initial conditions is also studied and the numerical computation of the solution is evocated.

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

We aim to deveIop a systematic method of designing structures, by finite element methods, for high cycle fatigue under periodic constant load systems. After having defined a precise terminology, we quickly list those multiaxial fatigue criteria which can be found in the literature. Some criteria, derived from a microscopic approach (Dang Van's, Papadopoulos' and Deperrois' criteria) are extensively presented. The criteria which can be reasonably retained for numerical analyses of structures are underlined and compared to one anoth :r. As a conclusion, we describe a high cycle fatigue CAD system which can be derived from this analysis.