Explosively driven combustion of shock-dispersed fuels

The paper presents small-scale experiments with 1-g charges that explore the topic of post-detonation energy release due to the combustion of explosively dispersed fuels in the ambient air. To this end we have designed a new prototype small-scale charge, called Shock-Dispersed Fuel (SDF) charge. It consists of a lightweight, small paper cylinder filled with about one gram of a combustible powder (e.g., flake aluminum) surrounding a spherical PETN booster of 0.5 g. We have tested the SDF charges in a number of different environments, realized as closed steel vessels of simple geometry (barometric bombs). Three of the bombs vary in volume (6.6 1, 21.2 1 and 40.5 1), while their aspect ratio L/D is kept constant at about 1. Two further bombs are comparable to the smallest bomb in volume (6.3 1), but provide different aspect ratios: L/D = 4.6 and 12.5. In addition, we have also performed tests in a tunnel-model with an L/D = 37.5. Our basic goal is to assess the performance of the charges by means of the combustion-related pressure built-up. Thus we contrast experiments on SDF charges in air with tests in nitrogen, to inhibit combustion, and with tests on conventional charges. Experiments and theoretical estimates on the expected overpressure allow one to formulate various indicators of the combustion effectiveness. For SDF charges these indicate that the combustion effectiveness decreases with increasing volume of the barometric bomb, and also with increasing aspect ratio at constant volume. This bears importance to the performance of SDF charges in tunnel environments. The performance losses reflect - at least in part - geometry-specific constraints on the mixing between fuel and air