On the Use of Composite Charges to Determine Insensitive Explosive Material Properties at the Laboratory Scale

Abstract

Laboratory-scale air-blast experiments an gram-range composite explosive charges are presented. The composite charges consist of a spherical booster charge surrounded by a concentric, spherical “candidate material” shell charge. By way of composite charge explosive characterization, the candidate explosive material is able to be characterized through the “removal” of the known booster effects. Using peak shock wave pressures, a method is developed to remove the booster effects from the composite charge’s signature to yield the sole effects of the candidate explosive material, permitting its characterization. Air-blast explosive tests are conducted using digital high-speed shadowgraph visualization to measure the resulting shock wave radial position as a function of time. Booster and composite charge data are converted to Mach number versus shock wave radius profiles and subsequently to peak shock wave pressure versus shock wave radius profiles for characterization of the shell material. Explosives tested include: PETN, RDX, HMX, and Alliant Bullseye® SP.