Experimental Observations of Exploding Bridgewire Detonator Function

We have studied the behavior of exploding bridgewire detonators using a variety of observables for measuring temperature and density during detonator function. Continuous density movies have been collected using either proton or x-ray radiography and continuous light emission videos simultaneously measured using ultra-high speed video cameras. Spectrally resolved and single broadband pyrometric measures of temperature are also measured. We attempt to provide a description of the mechanism of function for EBW detonators based on the full suite of observations made and comparisons to studies in the literature. In this talk, we will show the results of measurements on PETN based EBW detonators run in both hardfire and near threshold conditions. In a companion talk, we will show the results of PETN response as a function of detonator voltage and temperature.