Effect of Confinement Thickness on the Deflagration to Detonation Transition of an HMX-based High Explosive.

Accurately modeling the the deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) in high eplosives is a critical step towards making effective predictions about the safety of energetic materials. DDT is influenced by a combination of material properities and environmental factors, including confinement strength, and their relative importance has yet to be fully quantified. In this study, we use HERMES (High Explosive Response to MEchanical Stimulus) model to simulate the thermite-ignitor driven DDT in LX-10 and Class I HMX powder confined in a steel tube. The influence of the confinement tube wall thickness as a function of DDT run distance is calculated and compared to available results in the literature. A comparison of both 2D and 3D HERMES model results is also presented.

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS- 832562.