Pore collapse in an energetic material from the micro-scale to the macro-scale

Abstract

We examine a pore in an energetic material whose collapse following the passage of a strong genesis shock wave, the subsequent ignition of reactive gases within it produced by pyrolysis at the pore boundary, and the emission of shock waves as a consequence of this ignition, can lead to a detonation. The interest in such a problem arises from the interest in knowing the sensitivity and therefore the safe-handling protocol of energetic materials. We follow the initial pore collapse, before melting occurs, using rational analytical strategies, but to describe the later stages, with full coupling between the physics in the condensate and those in the pore cavity, we describe a numerical strategy. The results provide a description of the power deposition into the energetic material and lead to a power deposition model for the macro-scale, one that encompasses a number of pores. For suitable parameter choices, shock waves generated by the pores interact to form a detonation upstream of the genesis shock.