Ultrafast dynamic compression technique to study the kinetics of phase transformations in bismuth.

Preheated Bi (296-532 K) was ramp compressed with 15-35 ns rise times to a peak stress of approximately 11 GPa to explore structural phase-transformation kinetics under dynamic loading conditions. At high strain rates, epsilon[over ]>5 x 10;{6} s;{-1}, deviation from equilibrium phase boundaries suggests that compression time scales are comparable to the new phase incubation period. The dependence of DeltaP/kT on epsilon[over ] is consistent with a thermally activated transformation.