Phenomenological aspects in explosive powder/gas two-phase detonations
- IIT Research Inst., Chicago, IL (United States)
- Army, Fort Belvoir, VA (United States)
Attempts were made to detonate a special ball-milled TNT powder of about 30-{micro}m particle size that was dispersed in air, oxygen, and nitrogen at nominally 1 kg/m{sup 3} in a highly instrumented 152-mm-diameter 7.31-m-long horizontal detonation tube. Results were successful in both air and oxygen, but not in nitrogen. New modifications to the detonation tube for this work included implementation of two-color temperature-measuring instrumentation, and the repositioning of some piezoelectric pressure transducers and fiber-optic light-detector probes so that phenomena such as spinning detonation and multiple-front detonations could be better identified and quantified. TIGER Code Chapman-Jouguet (CJ) computations were made for TNT, RDX, and mixtures of TNT and RDX in air, oxygen, and nitrogen at concentrations up to 100 kg/m{sup 3}. The computed results for TNT in air and oxygen at a concentration of 1 kg/m{sup 3} for the detonation velocities, pressures, and temperatures were 2.00 km/s, 4.00 MPa, 3250 K in air and 2.05 km/s, 4.40 MPa, 3,740 K in oxygen. Experimental results for TNT powder were 1.82 km/s, 4.06 MPa, 3,245 K in air and 1.90 km/s, 4.61 MPa, 4240 K in oxygen; the experimental concentrations, which were monitored with laser optics, were determined to be 1 kg/m{sup 3} with an estimated error of {+-} 10%. Subsequent experiments were conducted with RDX, alone and in mixtures with TNT, in attempts to achieve, detonation in nitrogen. These were successful except when the RDX percentage fell below 20% by weight. Results of successful detonations of RDX/TNT mixtures indicated multiple-front detonations, suggesting that the TNT was reacting behind the RDX detonation front in such a manner that it supported the overall detonation.
- OSTI ID:
- 93150
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-940711--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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