WGT: A mesoscale-informed reactive burn model

Abstract

Polymer bounded explosives (PBXs) consist of energetic crystals coated with a polymer binder. These materials exhibit a highly heterogeneous microstructure. The initiation of the detonation phenomenon in PBXs is believed to be generated at the microstructure scale through hotspots. Hence, many of the explosives properties (initiation, desensitization, etc.) are understood as a direct consequence of their microstructure. Mesoscale modeling directly addresses the physics of hotspot formation. Unfortunately, high computational cost prevents their use on laboratory-sized and large scale experiments. In practice, continuum-scale models remain mandatory. We describe a new reactive burn model, named WGT, aiming to represent, at the continuum scale, some of the complexity of the PBX’s microstructure. The initiation regime is driven by the shock temperature and results from surrogate modeling of the kinetics of a heterogeneous nucleation and growth model. The other regimes follow the formulation of the WHS2D2 reactive burn model and are driven by the local temperature. This model was calibrated on experimental results for PBX 9502 available in the literature, such as detonation velocity–curvature laws, Pop-plot data, or embedded electromagnetic particle velocity gauges. The model was also tested against desensitization and propagation data.