The interplay of casing material and detonation wave shock parameters in steel witness plate dent formation

Abstract

This study uses both experimentation and simulation to investigate how varying casing material around cylindrical Composition-B charges affects witness plate response and diagnoses the cause of the differences in the dents produced. Through experimentation, it was found that consistent dents are produced from repeated tests and characteristically different dents are produced by charges with different casing material. Charges cased in viscoelastic materials produced shallower dents than those without casing. Simulation was validated against the experimental dents, and the detonation wave parameters were measured for 25 differently cased charges: 15 metals and 10 polymers. Regression fit relationships were derived relating dent parameters to casing density, casing impedance, casing tensile strength, detonation pressure, detonation velocity, impulse, and time of arrival. Specifically, it was found that the dent volume was negatively correlated with the detonation velocity and the impulse of the detonation wave was negatively correlated with dent depths across the charge. The density of the casing material was shown to be linked to the width of the witness dents. Additional dent tests were simulated for trinitrotoluene (TNT) charges cased in a single polymer and a single metal. The relationships derived for Composition-B were adjusted to fit TNT using TNT equivalency and calculated the measured detonation wave values to within 10% accuracy. Finally, it was concluded that the measurable distinctions observed in the witness dents were not a result of the casing material itself, but of the changes in the detonation wave caused by its interaction with the casing material.