Combustion in cracks of PBX 9501

Conference · Mon Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2001

OSTI ID:976208

Berghout, H L ^[1]; Son, S F ^[2]; Bolme, C A ^[3]; Hill, L G ^[4]; Asay, B W ^[5]; Dickson, P M ^[6]; Henson, B F ^[7]; Smilowitz, L B ^[8]

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1. Henry L.
2. Steven F.
3. Cynthia A.
4. Larry G.
5. Blaine W.
6. Peter M.
7. Bryan F.
8. Laura B.

Recent experiments involving the combustion of PBX 9501 explosive under confined conditions reveal the importance of crack and flaws in reaction violence. Experiments on room temperature confined disks of pristine and thermally damaged PBX 9501 reveal that crack ignition depends on hot gases entering existing or pressure induced cracks rather than on energy release at the crack tip. PBX 9501 slot combustion experiments show that the reaction propagation rate in the slot does not depend on the external pressure. We have observed 1500 d s in long slots of highly-confined PBX 9501. We present experiments that examine the combustion of mechanically and thermally damaged samples of PBX 9501.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• OSTI ID: 976208
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-02-3732
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
CHEMICAL EXPLOSIVES
COMBUSTION
CRACKS
DEFECTS
IGNITION