Session K6: EM.1 Shock to Detonation II

Shock-to-detonation transition of RDX and NTO based composite high explosives: experiments and modeling

Composite HMX and NTO based high explosives (HE) are widely used in ammunitions. Designing modern warheads needs robust and reliable models to compute shock ignition and detonation propagation inside HE. Comparing to a pressed HE, a composite HE is not porous and the hot-spots are mainly located at the grain -- binder interface leading to a different behavior during shock-to-detonation transition. An investigation of how shock-to-detonation transition occurs inside composite HE containing RDX and NTO is proposed in this lecture. Two composite HE have been studied. The first one is HMX -- HTPB 82:18. The second one is HMX -- NTO -- HTPB 12:72:16. These HE have been submitted to plane sustained shock waves at different pressure levels using a laboratory powder gun. Pressure signals are measured using manganin gauges inserted at several distances inside HE. The corresponding run-distances to detonation are determined using wedge test experiments where the plate impact is performed using a powder gun. Both HE exhibit a single detonation buildup curve in the distance -- time diagram of shock-to-detonation transition. This feature seems a common shock-to-detonation behavior for composite HE without porosity. This behavior is also confirmed for a RDX -- HTPB 85:15 based composite HE. Such a behavior is exploited to determine the heterogeneous reaction rate versus the shock pressure using a method based on the Cauchy-Riemann problem inversion. The reaction rate laws obtained allow to compute both run-distance to detonation and pressure signals.   

Shock Initiation Experiments with Ignition and Growth Modeling on Low Density HMX

Shock initiation experiments on low density (1.24 and 1.64 g/cm$^{3})$ HMX were performed to obtain in-situ pressure gauge data, characterize the run-distance-to-detonation behavior, and provide a basis for Ignition and Growth reactive flow modeling. A 101 mm diameter gas gun was utilized to initiate the explosive charges with manganin piezoresistive pressure gauge packages placed between packed layers (1.24 g/cm$^{3})$ or sample disks pressed to low density (1.64 g/cm$^{3})$. The measured shock sensitivity of the 1.24 g/cm$^{3}$ HMX was similar to that previously measured by Dick and Sheffield et. al. and the 1.64 g/cm$^{3}$ HMX was measured to be much less shock sensitive. Ignition and Growth model parameters were derived that yielded good agreement with the experimental data at both initial densities. This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.   

Ignition and Growth Modeling of Short Pulse Duration Shock Initiation Experiments on HNS IV

Short pulse duration shock initiation experiments on 1.60 g/cm3 density (92{\%} TMD) HNS IV have been reported by Schwarz, Bowden et al., Dudley et al., Goveas et al., Greenaway et al., and others. This flyer threshold velocity for detonation/failure data plus measured unreacted HNS Hugoniot data and detonation cylinder test product expansion data were used as the experimental basis for the development of an Ignition and Growth reactive flow model for the shock initiation of HNS IV. The resulting Ignition and Growth HNS IV model parameters yielded good overall agreement with all of this experimental data. This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.: Explosive, HNS IV, shock to detonation transition, Ignition and Growth: 82.33.Vx, 82.40.Fp   

Short Shock Pulse Duration Experiments Plus Ignition and Growth Modeling on Composition B

Short pulse duration shock initiation experiments were performed on 1.71 g/cm3 Composition B using electrically driven kapton flyer plates. Critical impact velocities for initiation at several flyer plate thicknesses and diameters were determined. For 2 mm diameter flyers, the critical velocities for shock initiation ranged from 4.06 to 4.72 km/s for flyer thicknesses ranging from 127 to 50.8 microns. Since the failure diameter of Composition B is approximately 4 mm, the kapton flyers imparted sufficient energy to overcome the effects of both rear and size rarefaction wave energy loses and cause detonation. The Ignition and Growth reactive flow model parameters for Composition B were modified to include unreacted Hugoniot, detonation reaction zone, and overdriven detonation experimental data and then applied to the kapton flyer data with good results. This work was performed under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Energy by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344.: Explosive, Composition B, shock to detonation transition, Ignition and Growth: 82.33.Vx, 82.40.Fp   

Investigating short-pulse shock initiation thresholds in HMX-based explosives with reactive mesoscale simulations

Short-pulse loading experiments have demonstrated the probabilistic nature of shock initiation thresholds in a variety of explosives. The intensely loaded region of explosive adjacent to the flyer impact zone, and its potential hot spots, influences the overall sample shock sensitivity. As the size of this region decreases below the representative volume element size, the likelihood of sampling differing hot spot densities in it increases from sample to sample. We hypothesize that this variation in active hot spots contributes to the probabilistic nature of short-pulse shock initiation. We investigate the role of microstructure and explosive reactive properties on shock initiation response with mesoscale simulations of miniature flyer plate experiments. LX-10 (95{\%}wt HMX, 5{\%}wt Viton A) is the model explosive. To investigate the influence of microstructure, we vary void size and spatial position. While void volume fraction and HMX grain size distributions are fixed, assigning random spatial positions to these parameters leads to hot spot density variations over many microstructural realizations. HMX reactivity is also investigated. The influences of microstructure and reactivity parameters are discussed. This study enables the development of predictive shock sensitivity models with basic structure-property information.