Critical Diameter Study of Unconfined Australian Manufactured Composition B,Grades A and B

摘要

Composition B is a widely used high explosive main charge filling for generalpurpose bombs. In Australia it is manufactured from either RDX (Grade A or Grade B)/TNT 60/40 with 1% wax, or RDX (Grade B)/TNT 55/45 with 1% wax. In weapon applications computational models require experimental data to determine certain specific output parameters of Composition B to predict air blast and fragmentation scenarios. To this end, the critical diameter, which is the minimum diameter which will sustain a stable detonation, and the limiting value of the velocity of detonation at infinite charge diameter D(infinity), were determined for unconfined cylinders of each Composition B type. An ionization probe technique was used to measure the velocity of detonation (V of D) of the samples over a range of charge diameters (d).