Towards a Small-Scale Experimentation Protocol to Evaluate New Energetic Materials

Underlying physics and chemistry that govern the properties of materials under extreme pressures and temperatures, as the material undergoes explosive phenomena, are not fully understood. To understand these types of events, key scientific questions need to be addressed. First, is the new material an explosive? Second, how does the material perform in terms of metrics such as detonation pressure, velocity, and stored energy? Lastly, what are the kinetic properties that affect the rate of energy release? Small scale experiments along with modeling & simulations can provide insight in to answering some of these questions. This paper will describe a proposed small-scale experimental protocol using previously published small-scale experiments (e.g., miniature shock reactivity experiments and detonation propagation experiments) and factors affecting these experimental measurements such as, density of material, particle size distribution, purity, and formulations of the material with other ingredients. A small-scale experimental protocol is required efficiently assess new materials while assuring any experiment has an adequate amount of material for results to be valid.