High Speed Camera to See Inside Plastic-bonded Explosives During Shock Initiation and Detonation
Abstract
This project seeks to understand how the microstructure of plastic-bonded explosives (PBX) behaves during shock initiation and detonation by looking through a microscope directly into the explosives with a high-speed framing camera that would be purchased with DURIP funding. The DURIP award would support both our AFOSR and ARO funded research. The AFOSR project concentrates on microstructure effects on shock initiation and the ARO project concentrates on detonation and shock-to-detonation transition. The framing camera would be incorporated into our shock compression microscope, and it would give us 1 ns temporal and 2 µm spatial resolution. This microscope uses arrays of laser-launched flyer plates and disposable mass-produced arrays of 1 mm diameter PBX charges that allow us to perform a hundred or more shots per day. The microscope has high-speed diagnostics that measure the pressure, temperature, density and composition of the PBX during shock compression, but it is hard to interpret those measurements without actually seeing what the complex microstructure is doing. Having the instruments plus the video will revolutionize our understanding of the fundamental processes occurring inside PBX during shock initiation and detonation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 11, 2019
- Source ID
- W911NF1910173
Entities
People
- Dana D. Dlott
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- United States Army
- University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign