Detonation Properties of 1,3,5-Triamino-2,4,6-Trinitrobenzene when impacted by hypervelocity projectiles

✍ Scribed by J. Delistraty; H. Brandt

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1982
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 964 KB
• Volume: 7
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0721-3115
• DOI: 10.1002/prep.19820070502

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

This investigation analyzes the reaction of an insensitive high explosive with binder to hypervelocity impact by four projectiles of two types: rod and plate. The insensitive high explosive is composed of 92.5% 1,3,5‐triamino‐2,4,6‐trinitrobenzene (TATB) and 7.5% Kel‐F 800 binder, a vinylidene fluoride‐chlorotrifluoroethylene copolymer. In this paper, for simplicity, we refer to this composition as “TATB”.

Of the the impacting projectiles, three are steel‐rod assemblies ranging in weight from 32.6 g to 34.6 g, and are composed of a steel rod 8 mm in diameter and 19 mm in length, of which 9 mm protrudes from a Polyzelux plastic holder. The fourth is a tantalum‐plate assembly, weighing 23.9 grams and composed of a tantalum plate 24.2 mm in diameter and 1.5 mm in thickness mounted on a Polyzelux holder. The tantalum‐plate experiment provides a highly efficient diverging detonation profile as predicted by similar previous investigations with flyer plates and TATB. The steel‐rod experiments are compared to the tantalum‐plate experiment to determine if detonation has occurred with the steel‐rod impacts.

The projectiles are accelerated by a two‐stage, light‐gas gun to velocities in the range of 3.1 km/s to 6.5 km/s (10,171 ft/s to 21,325 ft/s) and have bracketed the detonation threshold of the impacted TATB target. Comparisons of the TATB reaction data to a computer modeling of the experiment show that at 3.06 km/s, the computer model correctly predicts no initiation of detonation; at 4.75 km/s, the computer model correctly predicts a partial detonation; and at 5.67 km/s and 6.53 km/s, both the computer analyses and the experiments give divergent detonations.