Shock induced sub-detonation chemical reactions in 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene

Abstract

The technique of combining slapper ignition with fast (12 μs/scan) time-of-flight mass spectroscopy has been used for studying the early shock-induced decomposition of TATB (1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene). By varying the slapper energy, and hence the shock intensity, it was possible to vary the degree of reaction from a weak detonation to full detonation. As the slapper energy was lowered, several larger mass fragments were detected, e.g. m/z 242. This indicates that it is possible to detect early decomposition products using this technique. The same set of experiments was also conducted on isotopically labelled TATB (TATB−15N6) where the corresponding peak occurred at m/z 248. From this it was concluded that the peak resulted from a shock-induced elimination of oxygen, and hence that the early decomposition is a conversion of a nitro group to a nitroso group.