ENERGETIC MATERIAL RESPONSE IN A COOKOFF MODEL VALIDATION EXPERIMENT

The cookoff experiments described in this paper belong to the small-scale experimental portion of a three-year phased study of the slow cookoff problem. This paper presents the response of three energetic materials in a small-scale cookoff experiment. The experimental effort is being used to validate the cookoff models currently under development by the Department of Energy (DOE).1-2 In this phase of the project, a relatively simple geometry was used to evaluate the cookoff response of the energetic material with respect to both time to reaction and the level of reaction violence. Careful control of the experiment has been made with the selection of sample size (L/D ratio), containment (steel), sealing and thermal heating profile. Currently, the energetic materials under investigation include the RDX based explosive PBXN-109, an AP based propellant PS-1, and the HMX based explosive, LX-10. The focus of the current cookoff study is to provide experimental data for DOE model validation that span the levels of reaction violence from mild reactions to detonation events and to identify the contributing factors which influence these responses. Diagnostics include the use of thermocouples, strain gages, high-speed digital imaging (Cordin), and postmortem evaluation of fragments