, Explosives Engineering | Paul W. Cooper BRITISH LIBRARY DOCUMENT SUFFLY CENTRE 16 OCT 1997 ® WILEY-VCH New York « Chichester + Weinheim + Brisbane + Singapore + TorontoPaul W. Cooper 424 Girard Blvd., SE Albuquerque, NM 87106 This book is printed on acid-free paper. 3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cooper, Paul W., 1937— Explosives engineering / Paul W. Cooper. Pp. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. — ) and index. ISBN 0-471-18636-8 (alk. paper) 1. Explosives. Title TP270.C7438 1997 662'.2—de20 Copyright © 1996 Wiley-VCH, Inc. All rights reserved. Published simultaneously in Canada. Reproduction or translation of any part of this work beyond that permitted by Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without the permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Requests for permission or further information should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 0-471-18636-8 Wiley-VCH, Inc. 0987654321Dedicated to my Dad, the late Nathan Cooper, a helluva engineer!Preface The field of explosives engineering incorporates a broad variety of sciences and engineering technologies that are brought together to bear on each particular design problem. These technologies include chemistry, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, mechanics, electricity, and electronics, and even mete- orology, biology, and physiology. Although excellent textbooks and research papers are found in each of these areas, there has been little, if any, literature available that ties all these diverse technologies together into a unified engi- neering discipline for this complex field of explosives engineering. The purpose of this text is to attempt to fill that gap. It is based, in large part, upon engineering philosophies and approaches I have developed during my career to solve numerous design problems. The text is broken into six general areas, each of which is bound together by a common technical thread. Section I deals with the chemistry of explosives. It starts with definitions and nomenclature of organic chemicals, based on molecular structure, which is included to bring nonchemists up to speed on being able recognize and describe pure explosive compounds and mixtures and not to be intimidated by chemists” jargon. It then describes the many forms in which these explosive chemicals are used. Using molecular structure as the common thread, the text then goes into the estimation of the stoichiometry of oxidation reactions, the prediction of explosive detonation velocity and pressure properties, and the quantitative anal- ysis of thermal stability. Section II deals with the energetics of explosive reactions: Where does the energy come from, and how much do we get out of a particular explosive reac- tion? This section also uses molecular structure as the common thread tyingviii EXPLOSIVES ENGINEERING together the thermophysical and thermochemical behavior of these reactions. In this section the thermochemical properties of the materials are used to predict the explosive properties. Section III deals with nonreactive shock waves. The thread here is composed of three simple equations that describe the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy across the shock front. In this section we learn how to deal quanti- tatively with shock waves interacting with material interfaces and other shock waves. Section IV combines the thermochemistry from Section II with the shock behavior of Section III to describe detonation (reactive shock waves). This sec- tion begins with simple ideal detonation theory and then goes on to quantitative calculations of detonation interactions at interfaces with other materials, and then deals with nonideal effects, those that cannot be predicted by ideal theory, such as the effects of size and geometry. Section V describes the initiation of explosive reactions and the application of initiation theory to the design and analysis of initiating devices such as non- electric, hot-wire, and exploding-bridgewire igniters and detonators. The thread that sews together all initiation phenomena is an energy-power balance, which describes the rate at which energy is deposited in an explosive and the rate of energy lost from the explosive through heat transfer. Section VI takes all the previous information and, hanging that on a common thread of dimensional analysis, goes into the development of design scaling and scaling databases. Scaling theory and data are used here to predict the formation and flight of fragments generated by explosive devices; the production and behavior of air- and water-blast waves; the formation of craters from above- ground, ground-level, and buried explosive charges; the formation of material jetting and how that is applied to the design and behavior of lined cavity-shaped charges, as well as to the process of explosive welding. Missing from this text is any mention of the computer codes and programs that may be used for the solution of many explosive design problems. That is an intentional omission. This text is intended to give the reader the basic under- standing and working tool kit to deal with various explosive phenomena, When computer codes are used, this basic understanding of the phenomena provides a reality check of the output of computer-derived solutions. Acknowledgments I wish to acknowledge and thank the following people who helped with bringing this book to completion: Glenda Ponder for the editing and typing and formatting of the original manuscript; Dr. Olden L. Burchett (Sandia National Laboratories, retired), Dr. Brigita M. Dobratz (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, retired), and Stanley R. Kurowski (Sandia National Laboratories, retired), who devoted so much time and work in the editing and checking of the final manuscript. ’ | Sicsoemeat. emilee: iePREFACE ix My sincere thanks and appreciation also to the following people who reviewed the manuscripts and provided many excellent comments and improve- ments: John L. Montoya (Sandia National Laboratories), Dr. Gerald Laib (Naval Surface Warfare Center White Oak), Dr. James E. Kennedy (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Dr. Carl-Otto Lieber (Bundesinstitut fur Chemisch-Techn- ische, BICT, Germany), Dr. Hugh R. James (Atomic Weapons Establishment, England), Dr. Pascal A. Bauer (Professor, Ecole Nationale Superieure de Meca- nique et d’ Aerotechnique, Paris, France), Dr. Eric J. Rinehart (Field Command, U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency). Mr. J. Christopher Ronay (Institute of Makers of Explosives), and Dr. Ronald Varosh (Reynolds Industries Systems, Inc.). Paul W. Cooper Albuquerque, NMContents SECTION I: CHEMISTRY OF EXPLOSIVES 1 Chapter 1: Organic Chemical Nomenclature 3 1.1 Basic Organic Structures 3 Alkanes 4 Alkenes 7 Alkynes 7 Cyclic Forms 9 Aromatics 10 Polycyclic Aromatic Structures 16 UAaAWURwN Chapter 2: Oxidation 19 2.1 Oxidation Reactions 19 2.2 Effects of Stiochiometry 20 2.3 Reaction Product Hierarchy 20 2.4 Oxygen Balance 24 Chapter 3: Pure Explosives 27 3.1 Grouping Explosives by Structure 27 3.2 Aromatic Explosive Compounds 28xii EXPLOSIVES ENGINEERING 3.3 Aliphatic Explosive Compounds 40. 3.4 Inorganic Explosives 48 Chapter 4: Use Forms of Explosives 51 4.1 Pressings 51 4.2 Castables 52 4.3 Plastic Bonded (PBX) 53 44 Putties 53 4.5 Rubberized 53 4.6 Extrudables 57 4.7 Binary 58 4.8 Blasting Agents 58 4.9 Slurries and Aqueous Gels 60. 4.10 Dynamites 61 Chapter 5: Estimating Properties of Explosives 67 5.1 Estimation of Theoretical Maximum Density (TMD) 67 5.2 Estimation of Detonation Velocity at TMD 73 5.3 Detonation Velocity as Function of Density 76 5.4 Estimating Detonation Velocity of Mixtures 77 5.5 Estimating Detonation Pressure 79 Chapter 6: Decomposition 81 6.1 Decomposition Reactions 81 6.2 Thermal Stability Tests 83 6.3 Chemical Compatibility 87 References 88 SECTION II: ENERGETICS OF EXPLOSIVES 91 Chapter 7: Basic Terms of Thermodynamics 93 7.1 Energy 93 7.2 Temperature and Heat 94 7.3 Internal Energy 94 74 Energy in Transition: Heat and Work 95 7.5 Energy Units 95 7.6 Enthalpy 97