An Eight-Inch Diameter, Heavily Confined Card Gap Test

Abstract

An instrumented card gap test which is useful for investigating the response of explosives to low pressure, long duration shock stimuli has been developed. The test was designed to screen for an explosive's propensity to detonate or react violently as result of shock induced sympathetic detonation of large ordnance such as general purpose bombs. Both donor and acceptor are encased in an 8-in. outside diameter by 0.35-in. wall steel pipe. Plexiglass of varying thickness and steel end plates are used to control the shock amplitude transmitted to the acceptor. The acceptor is instrumented with piezoelectric time of arrival pins and an armor witness plate. Hydrocode calculations show that the end plates result in significantly longer pressure durations and lower peak pressures than other gap test and is a more realistic mock of the shock loading experienced in large ordnance sympathetic detonation experiments. The results presented includes data for tritonal, composition B, TNT/wax and TNT/NQ/ wax. The range of pressure resulting in transition to detonation for different explosives is narrower for this test than that measured in experiments such as the NOL LSGT.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1985
Accession Number
ADA161557

Entities

People

  • B. G. Craig
  • Joseph C. Foster Jr.
  • Keith R. Forbes
  • Michael E. Gunger

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter IED
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Amplitude
  • Armor
  • Classification
  • Detonations
  • Energetic Materials
  • Explosives
  • General Purpose Bombs
  • High Explosives
  • Hydrocodes
  • Materials
  • Materials Laboratories
  • Munitions
  • Ordnance Laboratories
  • Security
  • Shock Waves
  • Sympathetic Detonations
  • Weapons

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Combustion Dynamics and Shock Wave Physics.
  • Explosive Engineering.
  • Rocket Propulsion.