Preliminary experimental study on the mechanisms of explosion-electric coupling

Abstract

Electric energy is one of the most widely used forms of energy. It is valuable to couple electric energy with an explosion to boost detonation performance. The phenomenon of electric energy enhancing an explosion is referred to herein as explosion-electric coupling (EEC) by the author. An experimental device was designed to explore this phenomenon, and the device was equipped with measuring devices to collect data related to the electric and detonation characteristics of explosives. Trinitrotoluene and aluminized explosives were selected as test explosives and pressed into flat and cylindrical charges. Thus, different kinds of explosives with different shapes were able to be studied. The change of the current-voltage curve of the EEC was analyzed, and the process of the EEC was divided into three stages: explosion initiation, detonation growth, and steady-state detonation propagation. The results showed that the enhanced pressure of the von Neumann spike varied with the explosive type, the same as for the increase of the detonation velocity. However, the increased pressure of the Chapman-Jouguet point mattered for the shape of the explosive charges. According to the features of the electrical characteristics and the increases of the detonation properties, a hypothesis was proposed to explain how the electric energy affected the explosion. The external electric field and the large pulse current were two forms of electric energy that influenced the explosion, and these forms of electric energy had different effects on different detonation properties.