“…As a result of possessing hardness above 30 GPa, low mass density (2.52 g ∕cm 3 ), and high Hugoniot elastic limit (17-20 GPa), boron carbide (B 4 C) has received considerable attention in ballistic applications (Karandikar et al, 2009). Due to its high melting point and thermal stability (Matkovich et al, 1977), favorable abrasion resistance (Subramanian et al, 2010), and high temperature semiconductivity (Thevenot, 1990), boron carbide excels in refractory, nuclear, and novel electronic applications, respectively; however, its performance is hindered by one or more of a number of inelastic deformation mechanisms, including deformation twinning (Li et al, 2010), stressinduced phase transformations (An et al, 2014;Eremeyev and Fischer, 2010), and various fracture behaviors (An and Goddard III, 2015) when subjected to mechanical stresses exceeding their elastic limit. The key failure mechanisms in boron carbide (e.g., cleavage fracture and twinning) are commonly studied experimentally using numerous characterization techniques (e.g., transmission electron microscopy (Zhao et al, 2016) and Raman spectroscopy (Yan et al, 2009)).…”