Understanding the response of secondary solid explosives to weak impacts

Secondary solid explosives, such as HMX, TNT or TATB, are an important class of explosives due to their balance between sensitivity and performance. While there has been a lot of research on the shock response of these materials, much less is known about how they respond to weaker and slower impacts, in the less than one Gigapascal range. Because temperature governs the chemical kinetics, which lead to the release of energy by the explosive, understanding how an impact heats the material is key to understanding the response. Therefore, we have developed a gun impact capability employing a suite of in situ diagnostics to measure the response of the explosive, including spatially and temporally resolved temperature measurements, pressure measurements, high-speed visible imaging and x-ray diagnostics. In this talk, we will present our latest measurements, including the response versus impact velocity and a comparison of different secondary solid explosive materials.