Measurements of the Equation of State of Lead under Varying Conditions by Multiple Methods

For the past few years AWE has been pursuing a programme of principal Hugoniot EOS measurements on metals and plastics at multi‐Mbar pressures. Recently we have decided to concentrate on measurements on lead by a number of different techniques to cover as much of the EOS parameter space as possible. Using the HELEN laser we have made more Hugoniot measurements from ∼800kbar to ∼10Mbar. We have also performed isentropic compression experiments up to ∼1Mbar using the Sandia National Laboratory’s Z machine. These were on single‐crystal and bulk lead and a lead‐antimony alloy. These complementary experiments allow us to compare single‐crystal, bulk and alloyed materials, to compare Hugoniots and isentropes at 1Mbar and to compare laser‐driven experiments with existing gas‐gun and explosively driven data at low pressures. This presentation will describe these experiments and the results, with emphasis on the ways in which they are complemetary: how one measurement can verify another, how techniques and diagnos...