Effect of Pressure of Supercritical CO2 on Perfusion Explosive with Foamed SF‐3 Propellant

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, an SF‐3 double‐base propellant was treated by a supercritical carbon dioxide foaming process. Effects of the pressure of supercritical carbon dioxide on the morphology, energy level, and ingredients of the foamed SF‐3 double‐base propellant and the detonation performance of a perfusion explosive with the foamed SF‐3 double‐base propellant were studied. Results show that, with the increase of the pressure, the number of pores in the foamed SF‐3 double‐base propellant gradually increased, and some of the pores were connected to form a small amount of cracks. In the foaming process, the pressure had a small effect on the energy of foamed SF‐3, and the formation of dense pores increased the volume of the sample. The dense pores acted as “hotspots” during the detonation process of the perfusion explosive, allowing the explosive to have better detonation performance, as compared with the perfusion explosive with unfoamed SF‐3 which could not detonate effectively. When the pressure of supercritical CO2 was 8 MPa, the perfusion explosive with foamed SF‐3 had a shock wave energy of 1.06 kJ g−1 and a detonation velocity of 6521 m s−1. When the pressure was 11 MPa, the detonation velocity and shock wave energy of the perfusion explosive were 2.9 % and 6.6 % respectively higher than those under the pressure of 8 MPa. Therefore, with the increase of pressure, the detonation velocity and the shock wave energy of the perfusion explosive with foamed SF‐3 were increased, proving that increasing the pressure can effectively improve the detonation performance of perfusion explosives with foamed SF‐3.