Laser impingement on bare and encased high explosives: safety limits
During the course of experiments involving high explosives, (HE), alignment lasers are often employed where the laser beam impinges upon a metal encased HE sample or on the bare HE itself during manned operations. While most alignment lasers are of low enough power so as not to be of concern, safety questions arise when considering the maximum credible power output of the laser in a failure mode, or when multiple laser spots are focused onto the experiment simultaneously. Safety questions also arise when the focused laser spot size becomes very small, on the order of 100 {micro}m or less. This paper addresses these concerns by describing a methodology for determining safety margins for laser impingement on metal encased HE as well as one for bare HE. A variety of explosives encased in Al, Cu, Ta and stainless steel were tested using the first of these techniques. Additional experiments were performed using the second method where the laser beam was focused directly on eight different samples of pressed-powder HE.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 9663
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-132108; DP0102032; DP0102032; TRN: AH200124%%427
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Euro Pyro 99, Brest (FR), 06/07/1999--06/11/1999; Other Information: PBD: 15 Mar 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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