Kinetics of Carbon Condensation in Detonation of High Explosives: First-Order Phase Transition Theory Perspective*

The kinetics of carbon condensation, or carbon clustering, in detonation of carbon-rich high explosives is modeled by solving a system of rate equations for concentrations of carbon particles [1]. Unlike previous efforts, the adopted rate equations account not only for the aggregation of particles, but also for their fragmentation in a thermodynamically consistent manner. Numerical simulations are performed, yielding the distribution of particle concentrations as a function of time. In addition to that, analytical expressions are obtained for all the distinct steps and regimes of the condensation kinetics, which facilitates the analysis of the numerical results and allows one to study the sensitivity of the kinetic behavior to the variation of system parameters. The latter is important because the numerical values of many parameters are not reliably known at present. In this presentation, we will discuss such physical phenomena and regimes of carbon condensation as the coagulation, nucleation, growth, and Ostwald ripening, and their dependence on various parameters of detonation.