Modeling Shock Desensitization of Composition B Explosive

Abstract The NOBEL multimaterial adaptive grid Eulerian hydrodynamic code was used to model a shaped charge jet formation, its interaction with a steel plate, and shock formation of a bow shock in front of the jet that shocks and desensitizes a cylinder of composition B explosive so that when the jet arrives it fails to initiate detonation. The jet passes through the composition B explosive cylinder, an air gap, and then initiates propagating detonation in a second composition B explosive cylinder that has not been desensitized by a preshock. The experimental arrangement was studied using X-ray radiography at the Material Research Laboratories in Melbourne, Australia. Keywords: composition B explosivedesensitizationNOBELnumerical modelingX-ray radiograph Acknowledgment The author acknowledges the private communication of the elegant radiographs of Chick and Hatt of the Australian Materials Research Laboratory that inspired this numerical modeling study for the Energetics Research Institute (EnRI) of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore where the author is an adjunct distinguished scientist.