High energy materials such as explosives exhibit detonation, generating instantaneous high pressures of the order of 10 GPa. To effectively utilize this energy, evaluations using model experiments and simulations are required. When applying energy near the explosion source, it is necessary to understand and evaluate the energy release behavior of high energy materials and the shock response of surrounding materials. In this paper, we will start with the basic concept of detonation, mainly discuss the equation of state of high energy materials, and also describe dynamic response on materials surrounding the explosion source.

Metasurfaces, functional surfaces with sub-wavelength structures, offer promising advancements in fields like communication, energy, and medicine. Mass production could be achieved through a breakthrough imprinting technology using shock waves to compress polymer nano-molds and metal samples. Experiments and simulations revealed that under high pressure, polymer molds temporarily lose shape but recover during pressure release, continuing to compress and deform the metal. This deformation is driven not by strain rate strengthening of the polymer, but by the shape recovery process. Even at the nanoscale, shock waves cause this recovery as they propagate and reflect through the mold and metal.

In this article, failure of concrete structural members and protective measures against the failure were summarized. Firstly, an evaluating method for uniform distributed explosive pressure caused by far-field explosion proposed by United Facility Criteria is introduced. Other evaluating method for close-in explosion and related experimental results are briefly described. Then, typical local failure of concrete beams and plates subjected to close-in and contact explosion with Composition C-4 high explosive and their characteristics were exhibited. The latest protective technologies against local failure of concrete plates subjected to the contact explosion, such as fiber reinforced porosity free concrete and poryurea spraying, are described.

Blast injuries are devastating both physically and psychiatrically, and the number of victims has been increasing due to recent global conflicts. In this article, current understandings of the fundamental aspects of blast injuries are reviewed concisely, where an emphasis is placed on blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) because of its unique characteristics associated with the primary mechanism, i.e., the effect of a shock wave itself. We will also describe our research on the mechanisms and modeling of bTBI using laser-induced shock waves to explore medical countermeasures.

In this article, we review recent advances on the piezomagnetic effect, which represents a linear coupling between elasticity and magnetism. The piezomagnetic effect occurs in magnetic materials in which both the time-reversal symmetry and the combined time-reversal and spatial-inversion symmetries are broken. The piezomagnetic response tensor changes its sign according to the sign of the antiferromagnetic domain; hence the piezomagnetic effect is useful to control the antiferromagnetic domain. We here introduce the construction of a pressure cell designed for simplified measurements of the piezomagnetic effect. We also present experimental results of two case studies for MnF₂ and MnTe.

Withered strawberry leaves were extracted with supercritical CO₂+water and were decomposed with high temperature and high pressure water. In the case of extraction with supercritical CO₂+water, antioxidant capacity (AOC), total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC) increased with increasing temperature at 20.1 MPa and have their maximal values against pressure at 35 °C. In the case of hydrothermal decomposition, the increase in the amount of water resulted in higher AOC, TPC, and TFC. AOC, TPC and TFC peaked at around 300 °C. The optimal condition was determined by the balance of decomposition of leaves and that of products.