Methods for High Accuracy Performance Measurements for Comparison of Varying Density PBX 9502

For polymer-bonded high explosives (HEs), detonation performance is highly sensitive to variations in density. Recent work at Los Alamos was performed on characterizing the change in detonation performance of an insensitive HE over several different densities. Velocities were measured across several rate-stick geometry charge sizes and found to vary significantly between each of these densities. This work describes how interpretation of these high-accuracy performance data requires precise preparation and characterization of the explosive charges. Characterization measurements include length, diameter, mass, temperature, and density, all of which are analyzed along with the data collected from shot diagnostics. We then show how these measurements are used to produce low uncertainty performance characterizations so that the influence of density can be isolated.