Impact Damage Visualization and Simulation of Energetic Materials

Energetic materials are subjected to harsh environmental conditions including impact, vibration and varied temperatures. Under such loading conditions, local stress or strain concentrations may lead to the formation of hot spots and unintended reaction. To visualize the dynamic damage and reaction processes in polymer bonded energetic crystals under impact loading, a high-speed X-ray phase contrast imaging (PCI) setup was synchronized with projectile impact from a light gas gun. Impact compressive loading was applied on PBX specimens containing a single or multiple energetic crystals. The impact-induced, time-resolved damage and reaction processes were captured using the high-speed X-ray PCI at a frame rate of 50,000 fps. Numerical simulation models were built based on the experimental results and used to investigate the impact damage and local temperatures in PBX over a wider range of parameter variations.