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Critical energy criterion for the Initiation of Explosives by Spherical Projectiles
Author(s) -
James H. R.,
Hewitt D. B.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
propellants, explosives, pyrotechnics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.56
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1521-4087
pISSN - 0721-3115
DOI - 10.1002/prep.19890140602
Subject(s) - explosive material , detonation , projectile , rod , mechanics , shock (circulatory) , boundary (topology) , range (aeronautics) , divergence (linguistics) , materials science , physics , classical mechanics , chemistry , mathematics , mathematical analysis , composite material , medicine , linguistics , alternative medicine , organic chemistry , philosophy , pathology , metallurgy
Evidence is given of a fundamental difference between the response of bare explosive to the impact of a flat‐nosed rod, and the response to a sphere or round‐nosed rod. For relatively insensitive explosives such as Composition B, a spherical projectile, in contrast to a flat‐nosed rod, can have a range of impact velocities that produce a blast output which falls short of the output expected from a full detonation. It is postulated that this effect is caused by the divergent flow behind the initial impact shock created by the sphere. Without such divergence it is assumed that these impacts would produce full detonation. Consequently thc critical energy criterion for spherical impacts should be applied to the non‐reaction/reaction boundary and not the reaction/detonation boundary. This is shown to give constant values of critical energy for different sizes of sphere impacting the same explosive, and to give similar energy values to those obtained from impacts of flat‐nosed rods.