Experimental Studies on Improved Plastic Bonded Explosives Materials (PBXs) for Controlled Fragmentation Warheads

Abstract

This paper describes formulations of plastic bonded explosives (PBXs) based on three highly brisant explosives, namely 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazinane (RDX), 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocane (HMX) and pentaerythritoltetranitrate (PETN) with polyurethane (PU) based on Glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) as an energetic binder in comparison with composition-B, which used in the fragmentation warheads. The sensitivity and performance properties of different types of PBXs were evaluated by experimental results of prepared selected PBX compositions. Casting technique was used to prepare the selected compositions containing 14% PU based on GAP. It has been observed that the brisance of the PBX based on HMX was higher than that of comp-B by 21.3 %, the detonation velocity showed a remarkable increase of the order of 8480 (m/s) while that of comp-B was 7638 (m/s). A controlled fragmentation warhead with an outer grooving warhead case of dimensions 100x35x4 mm was used and arena test was carried out to determine the lethal zone of the fragmentation warhead. The lethal zone obtained from arena test for PBX composition based on HMX named PBXHG4 was higher than that based on RDX or PETN, and than that of comp-B by 40%.

Embedded Manganin Gauge Measurements and Modeling of Shock Initiation in HMX‐Based PBX Explosives with Different Particle Sizes and Porosities

“…or their mixtures and a few percent of polymer binders, together with a small amount of porosity, have attracted much academic attention due to their high energy and insensitive properties, which has also stimulated the synthesis of insensitive high composite explosives [1][2][3]. Investigations into the initiation mechanisms and the ignition and detonation growth behaviors of a heterogeneous solid explosive under the external shock-wave loadings have been a critical issue in practical military and/or civil engineering applications for a long time [4,5], in which a core problem is to choose an available reactive flow model for the explosives, including the calibration of the model parameters, to quantitatively and accurately predict the shock initiation and subsequent detonation processes in the explosives.…”