Modeling thermal/chemical/mechanical response of energetic materials

An overview of modeling at Sandia National Laboratories is presented which describes coupled thermal, chemical and mechanical response of energetic materials. This modeling addresses cookoff scenarios for safety assessment studies in systems containing energetic materials. Foundation work is discussed which establishes a method for incorporating chemistry and mechanics into multidimensional analysis. Finite element analysis offers the capabilities to simultaneously resolve reactive heat transfer and structural mechanics in complex geometries. Nonlinear conduction heat transfer, with multiple step finite-rate chemistry, is resolved using a thermal finite element code. Rate equations are solved element-by-element using a modified matrix-free stiff solver This finite element software was developed for the simulation of systems requiring large numbers of finite elements. An iterative implicit scheme, based on the conjugate gradient method, is used and a hemi-cube algorithm is employed for the determination of view factors in surface-to-surface radiation transfer The critical link between the reactive heat transfer and mechanics is the introduction of an appropriate constitutive material model providing a stress-strain relationship for quasi-static mechanics analysis. This model is formally derived from bubble nucleation theory, and parameter variations of critical model parameters indicate that a small degree of decomposition leads to significant mechanical response. Coupled thermal/chemical/mechanical analysis is presented which simulates experiments designed to probe cookoff thermal-mechanical response of energetic materials