On Some Methods of Determination of the Detonation Energy of Explosives

W. A. TRZCISKI
Military University of Technology, Warsaw, PL

Two methods of determination of the detonation energy of explosives are discussed in the paper. The first one is a calorimetric method, in the second one the results of a so-called cylinder test are used. A calorimetric system for measurement of the heat of detonation of explosive charges is applied in which compressed inert gas is used to stop secondary reactions in the detonation products. The basis of the second method is the result of a cylinder test. In this test a copper tube is accelerated by the detonation products of explosive. The expansion of the tube is recorded. From the cylinder test results the kinetic energy of the tube and that of detonation products can be calculated. The kinetic energies for the tested and standard explosives enable us to determine the detonation energy. The method is verified by the use of chosen cylinder test results.

1. Introduction An influence of detonation conditions on the heat effect of explosives was investigated by D. L. Ornellas [1] in the bomb of 5.28 litre in volume. Ornellas studies indicate that the heat effects from cylindrical heavily confined charges correspond to the detonation heats of explosives. The detonation products from confined charges are those on the Chapman-Jouguet (CJ) isentrope in the freeze-out range of 1500 to 1800 K. The results obtained from unconfined charges coincide with the heats of reactions proceeding under conditions of high temperature and low pressure. Among others, the calorimetric heats of TNT and HMX were measured. The values of 1093 and 632 cal/g were obtained for heavily confined and unconfined TNT charges located in the calorimetric bomb with vacuum. The heat effects of 1479 and 1334 cal/g were measured for HMX charges under similar conditions. The influence of gaseous filling of a steel chamber of 1.50 m3 in volume on the composition of detonation products was studied in Ref. [2]. It was proved that compressed argon behaved as a confining medium and it caused that the heat output of detonation increased. In this work, inert gas filling the calorimetric bomb is applied to limit the effect of secondary reactions in the detonation products [3-4]. The results of the expansion of a metal tube caused by the detonation products of an explosive charge placed within it can provide considerable information concerning the amount of chemical energy released from the explosive and the extent of its transfer to the surroundings. Such a test is called the cylinder test. Some methods enabling an application of the expanding tube records for determination of the acceleration capacity, the expansion work and the detonation energy of high explosives, and the equation of state of the detonation products were pro-

W. A. TRZCISKI

posed in Refs. [5-6]. In this paper the improved method of determination of the detonation energy from the cylinder test results is presented. 2. Calorimetric determination of the heat of detonation Figures 1 and 2 show the calorimetric system used for measurement of the heat of detonation of explosive charges. The spherical steel bomb having an internal volume of 5.6 dm3 was placed in the steel calorimeter vessel. The vessel contained about 26.5 dm3 of water. The water temperature was measured by a thermometer sensor and recorded by a memory system of the control unit. The calorimeter was surrounded by a constant-temperature jacket.

Fig. 1. Calorimetric bomb

Fig 2. The measurement set-up

The heat capacity (thermal equivalent) of the calorimeter was determined by burning about 5 g of benzoic acid in oxygen at a pressure of 2 MPa. The thermal equivalent, taken as the average of five tests, was 154 470 J/oC. The heat of detonation was measured in the bomb filled with compressed nitrogen, which replaced Ornellas solid confinement of a charge. The charge of explosive was suspended in the centre of the bomb. Weighed samples of explosives were pressed in matrices of an inner diameter of 30 mm. Each charge has a fuse cavity 8 mm in diameter and 15 mm long. The heat of explosion of an electrical fuse was estimated in Ref. [3] and it was 11720 J. At first step, the influence of the initial pressure of gas filling the calorimetric bomb on the heat effect of detonation was determined. TNT charges of 20 g mass were detonated in nitrogen under pressure from 0.1 to 2.2 MPa. Measured heat effects are presented in Fig. 3. Above the value of initial pressure of 1 MPa the heat changes in a interval 4530 210 J/g ( 5%).

On Some Methods of Determination of the Detonation Energy of Explosives

This value is close to the detonation heat measured in Ref. [1] for heavily confined TNT charges (average value of 4575 J/g). On that account, the heat of detonation of other explosives was measured in a bomb filled with nitrogen at a pressure of 2 MPa. TNT of 1.58 g/cm3, RDXph (RDX/(CH2)n 94/6) of 1.64 g/cm3 and HMXph (HMX/(CH2)n 96/4) of 1.74 g/cm3 density were tested. The results obtained for different mass of charges are presented in Table 1.
5500 5000 4500 4000

Qd [J/g]

3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 0.0 0.5 1.0

TNT
experiment regresion

1.5

2.0

2.5

p [MPa]

Fig. 3. Dependence of the detonation heat of TNT on initial pressure of nitrogen filling a calorimetric bomb Table 1. Detonation heat of high explosives for different charge mass

TNT m [g] 15.018 19.980 20.073 20.095 25.073 Qd [J/g] 4351 4316 4501 4515 4512 m [g] 15.076 20.073 25.097

RDXph Qd [J/g] 5341 5624 5557 m [g] 15.11

HMXph Qd [J/g] 5906 5912 5802 5839

15.024 19.989 24.983

(Qd)aver = 4439 [J/g]

(Qd)aver = 5508 [J/g]

(Qd)aver = 5865 [J/g]

W. A. TRZCISKI

For comparison, calorimetric detonation heats measured by Ornellas for heavily confined charges are as follows 4573, 4480, 4576 and 4672 J/g for TNT, 6093 J/g for the mixture RDX/HMX 91.35/8.65 and 6182 J/g for pure HMX. Therefore, quite good agreement between Ornellas results and those obtained in this work enables us to formulate the inference that the heat of detonation of high explosives can be measured by the use of unconfined charge in a calorimetric bomb filled with inert gas at high pressure. 3. Estimation of the detonation energy from cylinder test results In the cylinder expansion test, a metal tube is driven by the detonation products of a cylindrical charge of explosive. The expansion of the tube is monitored by precise methods of measurements of the quickly changing processes, such as streak photography, laser interferometry, X-ray photography. The cylinder test is mainly used in the methods in which parameters of the Jones, Wilkins, Lee (JWL) equation of state of the detonation products of explosives are determined. However, the cylinder test can be also applied for determining some energetic characteristics of explosives, including the acceleration ability and detonation energy of the explosive [6]. The result of the cylinder test is the experimental dependence of the radius of external surface of the tube on the time or the photograph of the expanding tube. From the latter, the dependence of the position of external surface on the axis co-ordinate can be obtained. On assuming that the motion of the detonation products and the tube material is stationary, the time-dependence of the external radius of tube can be calculated. At the end, the velocity of the tube is determined [6]. During the process of tube acceleration, the work done by the detonation products is converted to the kinetic energy of the tube, detonation products and air surrounding the tube, and to the internal energy of tube material and air. If the kinetic energy of air and the heat losses in the tube material and air are neglected, then the law of energy conservation can be written in the form

e0 = ekL ( v ) + ekDP ( v ) + pi ( v ) dv
v

(2.1)

where e0 denotes the detonation energy, ekL and ekDP are the kinetic energy of the tube and detonation products, respectively. The quantity pi(v) is the pressure on the isentrope starting from the CJ point, and v is the specific volume of expanding detonation products. The integral in Eq. (2.1) corresponds to the internal energy remained in the detonation products. All quantities in Eq. (2.1) are related to unit mass of the explosive. The sum of kinetic energies of the copper tube and the detonation products per unit mass of the explosive is called the Gurney energy, and for cylindrical tube it can be expressed by the following relation

EG ekL + ekDP

2 1 uL = + 2 2

(2.2)

where is the ratio of the tube and explosive masses per unit area.

On Some Methods of Determination of the Detonation Energy of Explosives

If we assume that the integral in (2.1), i.e., the internal energy of the detonation products, is proportional to the Gurney energy in the identical way for all explosives, the following relations are true for the given and standard explosives

e0 = A ( ekL + ekDP )
st st st e0 = A ( ekL + ekDP )

(2.3) (2.4)

where A is constant for chosen volume v. Taking into account the dependence (2.2), the following equation can be obtained from (2.3) and (2.4)

1 e0 2 = st e0 st + 1 2 +

uL st uL

(2.5)

where uL and uLst are velocities of the tubes driven by the detonation products of the given and standard explosives, respectively. If the detonation energy is related to unit volume of explosive, then Eq. (2.5) has the form

1 + 0 e0 2 = st e0 st 1 st + 0 2

uL st uL

(2.6)

where 0 and 0st denote the density of the given and standard explosives, respectively. From Eqs. (2.5) or (2.6) the detonation energy of the given explosive can be estimated if the detonation energy of standard explosive and the results of cylinder test for both explosives are known. To verify the method of determining the detonation energy, the experimental results of the cylinder test given in Ref. [7] were used. The velocity of the tube was calculated from the function approximating the time-dependence of radius of the external surface of the tube. Dependence of the square of velocity on the reciprocal volume of the detonation products is presented in Fig. 4. The values of uL2 for v0/v = 0.1 were taken into account. Pentryt (PETN) was chosen as a standard explosive. It was assumed that the detonation energy of PETN was equal to the energy E0 from the JWL equation of state [7]. The detonation energies of chosen explosives from Ref. [7] calculated by using relation (2.6) are presented in Table 2.

W. A. TRZCISKI

3.7 3.6 3.5 3.4

LX-09 LX-10

uL2 [m2/s2]

3.3 3.2 3.1 3.0 2.9 2.8 2.7 2.6 0.00 0.05 0.10

LX-07 LX-04

PETN LX-14

PBX-9011

0.15

0.20

0.25

v0/v
Fig. 4. Dependence of the square of velocity of the copper tube on reciprocal volume of the detonation products Table 2. Comparison of the detonation energy calculated from the cylinder test data, E0cal, with the detonation energy given in literature, E0 [7], Rw = [(E0cal-E0)/E0] 100 %

Explosive PETN Comp. B Cyclotol HMX LX-04 LX-07 LX-09 LX-10 LX-14 PBX-9011 PBX-9004 TNT Nitromethane Aquanal Pourvex ANFO Unigel

E0 [GPa] 10.1 8.5 9.2 10.5 9.5 9.6 10.5 10.4 10.2 8.9 10.2 7.0 5.1 5.5 4.5 2.9 5.1

E0cal [GPa] 8.59 9.28 11.26 10.37 9.98 10.70 10.57 10.37 9.27 10.41 6.30 4.50 2.51 3.82 2.21 3.91

Rw [%] +1.1 +0.8 +7.2 +1.7 +4.0 +2.8 +1.6 +1.7 +4.1 +2.1 -9.9 -11.7 -54.4 -15.1 -23.6 -23.4

On Some Methods of Determination of the Detonation Energy of Explosives

From Table 2 it follows that, for high explosives, differences between the detonation energies calculated by the method proposed and those given in literature do not exceed 12 %. The highest one is for nitromethane. The detonation energy of TNT estimated from the cylinder test data is 3865 J/g and that given in [7] is 4295 kJ/kg. Also the values of the calorimetric heat of detonation of TNT given in literature differ significantly from each other and, in reality, they depend on the measurements conditions. The method proposed cannot be applied for nonideal explosives. From Table 2 it follows that the discrepancy Rw exceeds considerably 10 % for these explosives (last four explosives in Table 2). Such a high disagreement may be caused by the fact that heat releasing in nonideal explosives takes place also behind the detonation zone. Probably, this energy is ineffectively transferred to the tube during later stage of the acceleration. To record the copper tube driven by the detonation products of explosives tested in calorimetric experiments, Scandiflash X-ray set was used. The cooper tube filled with the explosive tested was 300 mm in length. Its internal diameter and wall thickness were 25 mm and 2.5 mm, respectively. An exemplary radiograph of the copper tube driven by detonation products is shown in Fig. 5. From the photograph, dependence of the external surface radius of the tube on the axial coordinate was determined using graphical computer programs. The velocity of the tube was determined by using the method described in Ref. [6].

Fig. 5. X-ray photograph of the copper tube driven by detonation products of HMXph

As a standard explosive, phegmatised RDX was chosen. Its heat of detonation (Qdet = 5508 J/g) was determined in a calorimetric bomb filled with compressed nitrogen. The heat of detonation of RDXph was assumed to be close to the detonation energy (e0) - [6]. Results of the calculation of the detonation energy of TNT and HMXph are 4190 and 5980, respectively. Differences between the detonation energies calculated from the cylinder test results and the calorimetric heats of detonation do not exceed 6 %.

W. A. TRZCISKI

4. Summary The calorimetric set-up for measurement of the heat of detonation of explosive was tested in which inert gas filled a steel bomb. It was proved that compressed nitrogen stopped secondary reactions in the detonation products and it behaved like a solid envelope confining the explosive charge. The improved method of determination of the detonation energy from the cylinder test results was also presented. The method was verified and used for determination of the detonation energy of explosives tested in the calorimetric system. Quite good agreement between the results of both methods was observed. References
[1] D. L. Ornellas, Calorimetric determinations of the heat and products of detonation for explosives: October 1961 to April 1982, Report UCRL 52821, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. [2] F. Volk, Detonation products as a function of initiation strength, ambient gas and binder systems of explosives charges, Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics 21, 155-159, (1996). [3] S. Cudzio, R. Trbiski, W. A. Trzciski, P. Wolaski, Comparison of heat effects of combustion and detonation of explosives in a calorimetric bomb filled with inert gas or air (in Polish), Biul. WAT, 47, 11 (1998). [4] D. Gazowski, W. A. Trzciski., M. Siwirski, Measurement of the detonation heat of explosives in a calorimetric bomb filled with inert gas (in Polish), Biul. WAT, 54, 2-3 (2005). [5] R. Trbiski, W. Trzciski, Determination of an expansion isentrope for detonation products of condensed explosives, Journal of Technical Physics, 40, 4 (1999). [6] W. A. Trzciski, Application of a cylinder test for determining energetic characteristics of explosives, Journal of Technical Physics, 42, 2 (2001). [7] H. Hornberg, Determination of fume state parameters from expansion measurements of metal tubes, Propellants, explosives, Pyrotechnics, 11, 23-31 (1986).