Burning to detonation transition in porous beds of a high-energy propellant

✍ Scribed by Richard R Bernecker; Donna Price

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1982
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 926 KB
• Volume: 48
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0010-2180
• DOI: 10.1016/0010-2180(82)90129-8

✦ Synopsis

The tendency of highly confined porous charges of a cross-linked, composite modified double-base propellant (VLU) to undergo a deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) has been studied over the range of 1.0-i.7 g/cm 3, i.e., 53-90% theoretical maximum density (%TMD). The transition mechanism in VLU differed from that observed in most explosives. However, it resembled the variant mechanism previously observed in tetryl and thereby clarified the picture of this variant mechanism. The observations on VLU showed that it differed from most other explosives studied in the following ways: (a) the location and apparent cause of accelerated pressure buildup necessary for shock formation; (b) the effect of porosity on the relative time to detonation AtD; (c) the strong correlation between At D and predetonation coitmm length I over the entire porosity range; and (d) a shallow (or no) minimum in the high porosity end of the I versus %TMD curve.

1 HMX, RDX, TNT, picric acid, and ammonium picrate.