Critical Diameter Study of Unconfined Australian Manufactured Composition B, Grades A and B.

Abstract

Composition B is a widely used high explosive main charge filling for general purpose bombs. In Australia it is manufactured from either RDX (Grade A or Grade B)/TNT 60/40 with 1% wax, or RDX (Grade B)/TNT 55/45 with 1% wax. In weapon applications computational models require experimental data to determine certain specific output parameters of Composition B to predict air blast and fragmentation scenarios. To this end, the critical diameter, which is the minimum diameter which will sustain a stable detonation, and the limiting value of the velocity of detonation at infinite charge diameter D(infinity), were determined for unconfined cylinders of each Composition B type. An ionization probe technique was used to measure the velocity of detonation (V of D) of the samples over a range of charge diameters (d).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1997
Accession Number
ADA326447

Entities

People

  • L. Mcvay
  • R. J. Swinton

Organizations

  • Defence Science and Technology Group

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Australia
  • Bombs
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Chemistry
  • Detonations
  • Engineering
  • Explosive Charges
  • Explosive Ordnance Disposal
  • Explosives
  • High Explosives
  • Ionization
  • Materials
  • Materials Science
  • Munitions
  • Particle Size
  • Particles
  • Universities

Readers

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