Ultrasound-induced damage in high-solid-load polymer-bonded explosives
conference paper
Inducing damage via the formation of hot spots in energetic materials provides valuable insights into similar mechanisms during detonation events. Ultrasonic treatment is a potentially interesting damaging method, as ultrasound is capable of causing melting, delamination and decomposition of energetic single crystals and crystal clusters. Additionally, the heat generated by ultrasound may cause crystals to change to a potentially more sensitive polymorph. To this point, however, ultrasound has not been used on high-solid-load materials that are more representative of energetic materials currently in use.
This study presents the development of an acoustic treatment method to damage high-solid-load polymer-bonded explosives (PBXs). A set-up was designed to treat a HMX-based PBX similar to PBXN-110. To tune the set-up and investigate the main damage mechanism, sugar was initially used as a substitute for HMX. Thermochromic pigments were used to gain insight into local heating, which was found to be the main damage mechanism.
Results showed that it is possible to reliably achieve local temperatures over 180 °C. For the PBX, decomposition of the binder was observed. Moreover, the phase transition from β-HMX to δ‑ HMX, which has been reported to result in more shock sensitive PBXs, was confirmed visually. Although the developed treatment method affected mostly the surface of the PBX, these results demonstrate the potential of ultrasonic treatment as a method to study damage in energetic materials.
This study presents the development of an acoustic treatment method to damage high-solid-load polymer-bonded explosives (PBXs). A set-up was designed to treat a HMX-based PBX similar to PBXN-110. To tune the set-up and investigate the main damage mechanism, sugar was initially used as a substitute for HMX. Thermochromic pigments were used to gain insight into local heating, which was found to be the main damage mechanism.
Results showed that it is possible to reliably achieve local temperatures over 180 °C. For the PBX, decomposition of the binder was observed. Moreover, the phase transition from β-HMX to δ‑ HMX, which has been reported to result in more shock sensitive PBXs, was confirmed visually. Although the developed treatment method affected mostly the surface of the PBX, these results demonstrate the potential of ultrasonic treatment as a method to study damage in energetic materials.
TNO Identifier
972467
Publisher
TNO
Source title
New Trends in Research of Energetic Materials (NTREM), Pardubice, Czech Republic, 19-21 April 2022
Collation
8 p.
Place of publication
Den Haag
Files
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