High Strain-Rate Experiments of Mock Polymer-Bonded Explosive

Composite IDOX is formulated with 95 wt% idoxuridine, 2.5 wt% Estane 5703, and 2.5 wt% nitro plasticizer, serving as a viable mock material for the explosive, PBX-9501. Single-crystal IDOX (C₉H₁₁IN₂O₅) mimics the high-explosive HMX (C₄H₈N₈O₈) in terms of thermal stability, density, and mechanical properties under static compression (Yeager 2018). To extend the material characterization of composite IDOX into dynamic conditions, we conduct experiments on the pulsed power machine Thor. Complementary gas gun experiments conducted to characterize the sample material show that porous composite IDOX (1.75 g/cc) exhibits a 4.6% higher particle velocity at 1.2 GPa compared to P–α adjusted PBX-9501. This small difference is expected, given that IDOX is less energetic than HMX. We now present high strain rate results on full density IDOX composite (1.89 g/cc) for calibration and validation of Direct Numerical Simulations. SAND2025-01459A



Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. This work describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the work do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government.