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Charges of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) were impacted by laser-driven flyer plates launched from substrate backed aluminum films. The flyers were produced by single pulses from a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. The aluminum flyers were between 3 and 5 μm thick, had diameters of 1 mm, and achieved velocities up to 8 km s−1. The stresses were intense but of only nanosecond duration. This falls into an interesting regime since the shock thickness of a few microns is of the order of typical hot-spot sizes and less than the grain size of conventional explosive powders. Ultrafine PETN (∼1 μm grain size) was readily initiated, whereas conventional, 135 sieve PETN with a grain size of 106 μm was not, although limited reaction was observed in some cases. Environmental scanning electron microscopy was carried out to help elucidate the differences in behavior.

The channel effect: Coupling of the detonation and the precursor shock wave by precompression of the explosive

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