Numerical modeling of the effect of temperature and particle size on shock initiation properties of HMX and TATB

Abstract

Abstract The three-dimensional Eulerian reactive hydrodynamic code 3DE has been used to investigate the effects of particle size (and the remaining void or hole size) and of initial temperature on the shock initiation of heterogeneous explosive charges of HMX and TATB. Shocks interacting with HMX and TATB containing various hole sizes have been modeled. The void fraction was held at 0.5% while the spherical hole sizes were varied from 5.0- to 0.00005 mm radius. The shock pressure was also varied. As the hole size in TATB was varied from 5.0 to 0.5 mm, the explosive became more sensitive to shock. Decreasing the hole size to 0.0005 mm resulted in failure of the shock wave to build toward a propagating detonation. This is similar to the results previously reported for TNT. HMX became more sensitive to shock as the hole size was varied from 0.5 to 0.005 mm. The hole size had to be decreased to 0.0005 mm before the explosive became less shock sensitive. Smaller hole sizes (0.00005 mm) resulted in failure of t...