High explosive ignition through chemically activated nanoscale shear bands

MP Kroonblawd, LE Fried - Physical Review Letters, 2020 - APS
Shock initiation and detonation of high explosives is considered to be controlled through hot
spots, which are local regions of elevated temperature that accelerate chemical reactions …

Extemporaneous mechanochemistry: Shock-wave-induced ultrafast chemical reactions due to intramolecular strain energy

BW Hamilton, MP Kroonblawd… - The Journal of Physical …, 2022 - ACS Publications
Regions of energy localization referred to as hotspots are known to govern shock initiation
and the run-to-detonation in energetic materials. Mounting computational evidence points to …

Sensitivity of the shock initiation threshold of 1, 3, 5-triamino-2, 4, 6-trinitrobenzene (TATB) to nuclear quantum effects

BW Hamilton, MP Kroonblawd, MM Islam… - The Journal of …, 2019 - ACS Publications
Approximating the dynamics of atomic nuclei with classical equations of motion in molecular
dynamics (MD) simulations causes an overprediction of the specific heat and omits zero …

Interplay of mechanochemistry and material processes in the graphite to diamond phase transformation

BW Hamilton, TC Germann - The Journal of Physical Chemistry …, 2023 - ACS Publications
The manifestation of intramolecular strains in covalent systems is widely known to
accelerate chemical reactions and open alternative reaction paths. This process is …

Mechanochemical synthesis of glycine oligomers in a virtual rotational diamond anvil cell

BA Steele, N Goldman, IFW Kuo, MP Kroonblawd - Chemical Science, 2020 - pubs.rsc.org
Mechanochemistry of glycine under compression and shear at room temperature is
predicted using quantum-based molecular dynamics (QMD) and a simulation design based …

Enhancing the accuracy of density functional tight binding models through ChIMES many-body interaction potentials

N Goldman, LE Fried, RK Lindsey, CH Pham… - The Journal of …, 2023 - pubs.aip.org
Semi-empirical quantum models such as Density Functional Tight Binding (DFTB) are
attractive methods for obtaining quantum simulation data at longer time and length scales …

Synthesis of functionalized nitrogen-containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other prebiotic compounds in impacting glycine solutions

MP Kroonblawd, RK Lindsey, N Goldman - Chemical science, 2019 - pubs.rsc.org
Proteinogenic amino acids can be produced on or delivered to a planet via impacting abiotic
sources and consequently were likely present before the emergence of life on Earth …

Chemical degradation pathways in siloxane polymers following phenyl excitations

MP Kroonblawd, N Goldman… - The Journal of Physical …, 2018 - ACS Publications
We use ensembles of quantum-based molecular dynamics simulations to predict the
chemical reactions that follow radiation-induced excitations of phenyl groups in a model …

[HTML][HTML] Time resolved x-ray diffraction in shock compressed systems

HB Radousky, MR Armstrong, N Goldman - Journal of Applied Physics, 2021 - pubs.aip.org
The availability of pulsed x rays on short timescales has opened up new avenues of
research in the physics and chemistry of shocked materials. The continued installation of …

Many-body mechanochemistry: Intra-molecular strain in condensed matter chemistry

B Hamilton, A Strachan - 2022 - chemrxiv.org
Mechanical forces acting on atoms or molecular groups can alter chemical kinetics and
decomposition paths. So called mechanochemistry has been proposed to influence a variety …