The Effects of Microstructure on Detonation Wave Spreading in Nanoparticle TATB

One of the most critical performance characteristics of the explosive triaminotrinitrobenzene (TATB), is detonation wave spreading. This phenomenon is also often referred to as “corner turning,” and describes how well a detonation wave can spread laterally into unreacted material that isn’t directly in the path of the normal wave. In non-ideal explosives, like TATB, detonation waves tend to travel forward at a higher rate than they spread to the side, which can leave unconsumed explosive material in certain configurations such as transfer from one explosive charge into another of larger diameter. There are several well established tests for characterizing this undesirable behavior, but they provide only an empirical understanding. I will present on a new small scale experiment we developed for testing detonation wave spreading, and make comparisons between commercially available TATB and nanoparticle TATB. We have characterized the microstructure of both materials at three densities, and used those microstructures in mesoscale simulations that give insight into the underlying mechanisms. Nanoparticle TATB behaves like an ideal explosive at lower densities, spreading nearly as fast as the normal propagation. At high density it doesn’t appear to spread at all, “tunneling” through the material. This unusual behavior can be explained by analyzing the distribution of temperatures resulting in mesoscale simulations of the different microstructures. These results suggest a path for designing a formulation with improved detonation spreading performance.