An EFP impact in comparison with the IM fragment impact test (Paper) / Comparison between IM fragmen and EFP impact (Presentation)

One of the most common threats in the military Out of Area Operations is the IED-EFP against light armoured vehicles, trucks etc. Besides the direct danger to the personnel, a hit of an IED-EFP in a vehicle’s munition bunker will most likely end in a catastrophic event with many casualties. The development of IM munitions is already a major step...

Simulation and low velocity impact testing on confined explosives

TNO Defence Security and Safety, performs in depth research in energetic material responses to several Insensitive Munitions (IM) stimuli like cook-off, bullet-fragment impact and shaped charge impact. The response of energetic materials to these stimuli depends strongly on the properties of these materials at onset and during an event. This is...

Energy fluence, a parameter as important as pressure in describing shock sensitivity

Energy influence, a parameter as important as pressure in describing shock sensitivity

Flyer impact experiment to study vulnerability and reactivity of gun propellant formulations

A flyer impact experiment to study the vulnerability of propellant formulations is designed. The shock wave conditions of the impacting flyer are related to the energy transfer from a single detonating propellant grain as found by numerical simulation. A propellant will react due to the imposed shock from the impacting flyer. The reactivity of...

On the impact testing of cyclotrimethylene trinitramine crystals with different internal qualities

Impact testing of various cyclotrimethylene trinitramine (RDX) samples has been carried out with the Ballistic Impact Chamber (BIC). Numerical simulations have been performed to guide its experimental design and explain the phenomena that are observed in the measured pressure evolution. The experimental results obtained with the BIC are compared...

Shear initiation of Al/MoO3-based reactive materials

Reactive mixtures based on nano aluminium and nano- or micron size molybdenum trioxide have been pressed. These energetic mixtures have been tested in the Ballistic Impact Chamber and as an energetic projectile impacting a steel plate. Al/ MoO3-based reactive mixtures can be initiated by a controlled mechanical stimulus. The sensitivity depends...

Shear initiated reactions in energetic and reactive materials

Deformation of energetic materials may cause undesired reactions and therefore hazardous situations. The deformation of an energetic material and in particular shear deformation is studied in this paper. Understanding of the phenomena leading to shear initiation is not only necessary to explain for example the response of munitions to intrusions...

Explosive forming of aerospace components

Results are presented of the development of explosive forming technology for metal sheets and plates. Explosive forming is labor intensive, but requires only single-sided tooling it can be used economically for small series of hard to deform metals, like nickel, titanium and aluminum alloys, that are generally used in aerospace applications. As...

Physics of 1) Multiple initiation points in fragmentation warheads and 2) Explosive forming of metal parts

Shock wave fabricated ceramic-metal nozzles

Shock compaction was used in the fabrication of high temperature ceramic-based materials. The materials' development was geared towards the fabrication of nozzles for rocket engines using solid propellants, for which the following metal-ceramic (cermet) materials were fabricated and tested: B4C-Ti (15 vol.-%). B4C-Al, and TiB2-Al, with an Al...

The double explosive layer cylindrical compaction method

The standard cylindrical configuration for shock compaction is useful for the compaction of composite materials which have some plastic behavior. It can also be used to densify hard ceramics up to about 85% of the theoretical density (TMD), when low detonation velocity explosives (2-4 km s-1) are used. In order to attain higher densities, higher...

Spectroscopic studies of dynamically compacted monoclinic ZrO2

The properties of dynamically compacted monoclinic zirconia have been studied by X-ray powder diffraction, IR, Raman, EPR and luminescence spectroscopy. Compaction introduces a large number of defects into the sample, which leads to a broadening of the X-ray lines, and IR and Raman bands. Besides, Raman spectra of compacted samples recorded with...

Influence of mechanical damage on the shock sensitivity of plastic bonded explosives

Bare cylindrical explosive samples are damaged in a controlled way by impact onto a steel plate in the velocity range 80 to 150 m/s. The mechanical properties (stress-strain curves in elongation, variation of temperature and strain rate) of the explosive composition (HMX/polyurethane) have been measured in order to be able to perform numerical...

A new arrangement for dynamic compaction in the cylindrical configuration

The shock Hugoniot of aluminum nitride compacts

Shock wave equation of state for metals and ceramics