Plate-impact experiments on the HMX-based explosive PBX 9404

Abstract

This report examines a series of 5 plate-impact experiments on the HMX-based explosive PBX 9404 (94%wt HMX, 3%wt CEF, 2.9%wt NC, 0.1%wt DPA), Lot 10102Y. These experiments were performed using single- and 2-stage gas guns at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and cover a pressure range of 3–6.7 GPa. Through the use of an embedded magnetic particle velocity gauge technique, in situ particle velocity histories and shock wave times of arrival (ToA) are obtained at 11 gauge locations and 116 ’shock tracker’ points, respectively. Analysis yielded measurements of the reactant Hugoniot in the shock velocity-particle velocity plane, and run distances to detonation as a function of initial pressure. The shock Hugoniot was found to agree with the work of Ramsey and Popolato (4th Detonation Symposium) but differ from a legacy Hugoniot published in "LASL Explosive Property Data". Run to detonation data agree within error, but with a small systematic shift. This shift may be at least partially attributed to the legacy analysis techniques used in in the older data set. Hugoniot and Pop pot fits for this lot of PBX 9404 are reported, and detailed particle velocity and ToA data are available for use by the modeling community in the LANL Small Scale Database.