The Effect of Detonation Wave Incidence Angle on the Acceleration of Flyers by Explosives Heavily Laden with Inert Additives

The incidence angle of a detonation wave in a conventional high explosive influences the acceleration and terminal velocity of a metal flyer by increasing the magnitude of the material velocity imparted by the transmitted shock wave as the detonation is tilted towards normal loading. For non-ideal explosives heavily loaded with inert additives, the detonation velocity is typically subsonic relative to the flyer sound speed, leading to shockless accelerations when the detonation is grazing. Further, in a grazing detonation the particles are initially accelerated in the direction of the detonation and only gain velocity normal to the initial orientation of the flyer at later times due to aerodynamic drag as the detonation products expand. If the detonation wave in a non-ideal explosive instead strikes the flyer at normal incidence, a shock is transmitted into the flyer and the first interaction between the particle additives and the flyer occurs due to the imparted material velocity from the passage of the detonation wave. Consequently, the effect of incidence angle and additive properties may play a more prominent role in the flyer acceleration. In the present study we experimentally compared normal detonation loadings to grazing loadings using a 3-mm-thick aluminum clapper to impact-initiate a planar detonation wave in non-ideal explosive-particle admixtures, which subsequently accelerated a second 6.4-mm-thick flyer. Flyer acceleration was measured with heterodyne laser velocimetry (PDV). The explosive mixtures considered were packed beds of glass or steel particles of varying sizes saturated with sensitized nitromethane, and gelled nitromethane mixed with glass microballoons. Results showed that the primary parameter controlling changes in flyer velocity was the presence of a transmitted shock, with additive density and particle size playing only secondary roles. These results are similar to the grazing detonation experiments, however under normal loading the largest, higher density particles yielded the highest terminal flyer velocity, whereas in the grazing experiments the larger, low density particles yielded the highest terminal velocity.