Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Shock initiation of PBX-9404 by electrically driven flyer plates

Conference ·
OSTI ID:6482015
The shock initiation threshold of PBX-9404 was studied over the pressure range from 3.1 to 28 GPa with pulse lengths ranging from 0.007 to 0.063 ..mu..s. The short-duration, high pressure pulses were produced by the impact of thin flyer plates accelerated by electrically exploded metal foils. The experiments were performed on explosive pellets 25.4 mm in dia with thicknesses of 6.0, 10.1 and 19.1 mm. No dependence of the initiation threshold on pellet thickness was observed. The data are represented reasonably well by either the critical initiation energy or by the constant P/sup 2/ tau initiation criteria. Considerable scatter was observed in the data for the shorter-duration pulses. This scatter appeared to be due to enhanced sensitivity of the shock initiation threshold to variability in the properties of the explosive targets for the case of initiation by very short duration pulses.
Research Organization:
California Univ., Livermore (USA). Lawrence Livermore Lab.
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
6482015
Report Number(s):
UCRL-82162; CONF-790207-1
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English