Equation of state and temperature measurements for shocked nitromethane

Abstract

A thermodynamically consistent equation of state (EOS) was developed for unreacted liquid nitromethane (NM). The specific heat cv, the coefficient of thermal pressure (∂P/∂T)v, and the isothermal bulk modulus BT, were modeled as functions of temperature and volume using existing experimental data. To test our EOS predictions, temperature measurements using time-resolved Raman spectroscopy were obtained from NM subjected to stepwise loading. In contrast to previous EOS developments, calculations using our EOS show good agreement with the measured temperatures. Comparison with previous EOS models shows that simplifying assumptions, such as holding (∂P/∂T)v or Γ/v constant, lead to significant inaccuracies in temperature predictions for shocked NM. The assumption that the Gruneisen parameter Γ is a function of volume only is not consistent with our EOS.