Mechanical and microstructural characterization of a HMX-based pressed explosive: Effects of combined high pressure and strain rate

The paper presents a study of the combined effects of strain rate and confining pressure on the behaviour and microstructure evolutions of a HMX-based explosive. Hopkinson bar compression experiments are carried-out on samples confined with a brass sleeve. The latter is instrumented in order to determine the confining pressure on the explosive sample, directly function of the sleeve thickness and yield strength. A sample confined at 75 MPa and deformed at 250s−1 is recovered, cross-sectioned and studied using optical microscopy. Distributed microplasticity and microcracking appear similar to those induced by confined quasi-static experiments, indicating that stress triaxiality is the most important loading parameter. The sample also displays a large shear macrocrack, resulting from the formation of an adiabatic shear band. Shear banding seems to proceed by strong plastic strain gradients, followed by dynamic re-crystallization. Further strong thermal effects are observed, resulting in local reactive melting