Abstract:
The objective of this work is to provide guidance to explosive formulators and facilitate the development of improved penetrator explosives. Because of the complexity of these materials, it is difficult to relate parameters controllable during formulation to desirable properties in the final product. Formulation variations are limited to modifying the individual constituents in a formulation, their ratios, and the processing methods used, such as mixing and casting techniques. Most commonly, varying a single formulation parameter results in the variation of multiple mesoscale characteristics. It is well established that the mesoscale characteristics of energetic materials are responsible for energy localization and generating damage, “hot spots” and/or bulk reaction. The major impediment to understanding the influence of formulation parameters on explosive sensitivity is that formulation parameters are rarely synonymous with mesoscale characteristics. This is an ideal scenario for contributions via numerical simulation, where the mesoscale characteristics can be individually varied. Isolating the effects of a mesoscale characteristic allows its individual effect on sensitivity to be determined, as well as its relative importance to other mesoscale characteristics, allowing the relevant, irrelevant, and competing consequences of a formulation modification to be identified and evaluated. Similarly, the paramount considerations in developing a new formulation may be identified.