Simulation of a Nuclear Blast Wave with a Gaseous Detonation Tube
Abstract
There is an ongoing interest in simulating nonideal blast environments for nuclear effects research. In particular, one would like to be able to impose peaked blast waves on real ground surfaces and experimentally measure the ensuing dusty airblast environment. Proposed here is a gaseous detonation tube blast simulator. A disposable (or reusable) shock tube would be constructed on a in-situ ground surface of interest. The tube would be sealed and filled with a detonatable gas mixture. When a planar detonation wave is initiated at one end of the tube, it induces a peaked blast wave which expands self-similarly with time--the longer the detonation run distance, the longer the blast wave duration. Similarity analysis of such a wave (which consists of a constant-velocity Chapman-Jouguet detonation followed by an adiabatic rarefaction wave expressed in terms of a Riemann characteristic) results in a closed-form analytic solution for the flow field time history. It is shown that the static and dynamic pressure waveforms associated with this detonation give a high fidelity simulation of a nuclear surface burst.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA131489
Entities
People
- Allen L. Kuhl