Electromagnetic Effects in SDF Explosions

Reichenbach, H ; Neuwald, P ; Kuhl, A L

关键词: ALUMINIUM;    ASPECT RATIO;    BOMBS;    CALORIMETERS;    COMBUSTION;    CONFIGURATION;    DISTURBANCES;    ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSES;    ELECTRONS;    EXPLOSIONS;    EXPLOSIVES;    MHZ RANGE;    MIXTURES;    MORPHOLOGY;    NITROGEN;    PARTICLE;   

DOI  :  10.2172/972852
RP-ID  :  LLNL-TR-424626
PID  :  OSTI ID: 972852
Others  :  TRN: US201006%%525

学科分类：化学（综合）

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

The notion of high ion and electron concentrations in the detonation of aluminized explosive mixtures has aroused some interest in electro-magnetic effects that the SDF charges might generate when detonated. Motivated by this interest we have started to investigate whether significant electro-magnetic effects show up in our small-scale experiments. However, the design of instrumentation for this purpose is far from straightforward, since there are a number of open questions. Thus the main aim of the feasibility tests is to find - if possible - a simple and reliable method that can be used as a diagnostic tool for electro-magnetic effects. SDF charges with a 0.5-g PETN booster and a filling of 1 g aluminum flakes have been investigated in three barometric bomb calorimeters with volumes ranging from 6.3 l to of 6.6 l. Though similar in volume, the barometric bombs differed in the length-to-diameter ratio. The tests were carried out with the bombs filled with either air or nitrogen at ambient pressure. The comparison of the test in air to those in nitrogen shows that the combustion of TNT detonation products or aluminum generates a substantial increase of the quasi-steady overpressure in the bombs. Repeated tests in the same configuration resulted in some scatter of the experimental results. The most likely reason is that the aluminum combustion in most or all cases is incomplete and that the amount of aluminum actually burned varies from test to test. The mass fraction burned apparently decreases with increasing aspect ratio L/D. Thus an L/D-ratio of about 1 is optimal for the performance of shock-dispersed-fuel combustion. However, at an L/D-ratio of about 5 the combustion still yields appreciable overpressure in excess of the detonation. For a multi-burst scenario in a tunnel environment with a number of SDF charges distributed along a tunnel section a spacing of 5 tunnel diameter and a fuel-specific volume of around 7 l/g might provide an acceptable compromise between optimizing the combustion performance and keeping the number of elementary charges low. Further tests in a barometric bomb calorimeter of 21.2 l volume were performed with four types of aluminum. The mass fraction burned in this case appeared to depend on the morphology of the aluminum particles. Flake aluminum exhibited a better performance than granulated aluminum with particle sizes ranging from below 25 {micro}m to 125 {micro}m for the coarsest material. In addition, a feasibility study on electro-magnetic effects from SDF charges detonated in a tunnel has been performed. A method was developed to measure the local, unsteady electro-conductivity in the detonation/combustion products cloud. This method proved to yield reproducible results. A variety of methods were tested with regard to probing electro-magnetic pulses from the detonation of SDF charges. The results showed little reproducibility and were small compared to the effect from pulsed high voltage discharges of comparatively small energy (around 32 J). Thus either no significant electromagnetic pulse is generated in our small-scale tests or the tested techniques have to be discarded as too insensitive or too limited in bandwidth to detect possibly very high frequency electro-magnetic disturbances.