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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Physical and chemical observations in underwater explosion bubbles

Conference ·
OSTI ID:93151
;  [1]
  1. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States). School of Aerospace Engineering
Underwater explosion bubbles are created by nearly constant volume explosions of gaseous explosives in the C-H-O-diluent system. Contained initially in glass globes it 0.1 MPa pressure, the explosions create an oscillating bubble in two modes. First, the explosions are created in a free field, and second, the explosion takes place near a flat plate. These bubbles are intended as a subscale model of the actual bubbles created by detonation of a solid explosive in an underwater configuration. Of primary interest are the bubble energy loss mechanisms in the cycle-to-cycle oscillations in the free field explosions and the impact pressure of the water jet created when exploding near a flat plate. Using CO and H{sub 2} with stoichiometric O{sub 2} and various diluents, the curious fact emerges in the free field explosions that the molecular weight of the product gases has a primary effect upon the loss mechanism. In addition, the molecular weight strongly influences the impact pressure in the flat plate tests. In particular, the lower the molecular weight, the lower the loss and the higher the impact pressure. Alternatively, the water vapor mass fraction in the product gases has a primary effect upon the loss mechanism. Indicated are the presence of evaporative and Birkhoff instability but not Raleigh-Taylor instability.
OSTI ID:
93151
Report Number(s):
CONF-940711--
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English