When a structure is irradiated by a pulsed cold X-ray with high energy density, the instantaneous deposition of energy will induce melting, vaporization, and sublimation of the outer layer of material(s). As a result, the material(s) will blow off and hence lead to a so-called blow-off impulse. This kind of impulsive load will cause high-level structural responses. In order to investigate the effects, various test simulation techniques, such as the light-initiated high explosive (LIHE) technique, the spray lead at target (SPLAT) technique and the sheet-explosive technique, were developed due to the lack of proper X-ray sources. This paper presents a rod-explosive technique developed from the sheet-explosive technique. In this technique, the main property of the explosive, i.e. the specific impulse, is determined by using a pendulum test facility. The simulation load (equivalent to the cosine-distributed specific impulse on a conical shell induced by X-ray) is designed by load discretization and impulse equivalence. Numerical simulations of structural responses to both X-ray loads and rod-explosive loads were performed for validating the test simulation technique. An application example of testing a complex structure is briefly given in the end. The rod-explosive technique has the features of low costs and rather high fidelities. It provides a new approach for testing the structural responses induced by X-ray blow-off impulses.

In space engineering, pyroshock (or pyrotechnical shock) environments induced by pyrotechnical devices are severe for space hardware, especially the inner electrical components. Thus pyroshock responses need to be well considered in the design and manufacture of a space structure or system. Because of the lack of efficient analytical technique, laboratory tests are of importance at present. This paper experimentally studies the pyroshock responses of a conical aeroshell. Two experiments were performed by ignitions of true pyrotechnical devices. A number of acceleration histories were measured and the corresponding shock response spectrums (SRSs) were analyzed. The results show that the responses, not only in time domain but also in frequency domain, have significant decaying characteristics along the axial distance from the pyroshock sources. The quantitative results provide us a good understanding of local environments for design of the components and the corresponding installations.

The technique of centrifuge model test has been widely used in geotechnical mechanics and engineering because of its low cost and low test scale. In order to investigate the dynamic behaviors of the geotechnical model under explosion, we are developing an explosion geotechnical centrifuge. The dynamic environment of explosion is necessary to be determined for the strength design of the centrifuge nacelle. This paper presents the dynamic force measurement of the model container to the centrifuge nacelle under a typical explosion. Firstly, three cylindrical supports were designed and calibrated by quasi-static compressive tests. The force-strain relations are measured and linearly fitted. Secondly, an explosion test was performed and the dynamic strain histories of the supports were measured. Then the dynamic force histories were obtained combined with the calibration results. The investigation provides an understanding of the dynamic environment for the centrifuge nacelle design.