Deflagration of Secondary Explosives by Slowly Exploding Wires

Abstract

Small wires, identical to those exploded rapidly to initiate detonation in secondary high explosives, have been slowly exploded to ignite self-sustaining deflagrations in PETN, RDX, HMX, and tetryl. Producing deflagrations required circuits with relatively larger inductances and capacitances and much lower voltages than those used for exploding wire detonators. Choice of electrical parameters allowed the slow explosion of the wire without ignition of the explosive, but provided sufficient energy storage in the inductance to effect an arc between the terminals subsequent to the wire vaporization, This arc supplied the heat to start the deflagration. While the wire characteristics and current configurations used differ markedly from those employed in hot-wire ignition of secondary explosives, the required conditions of explosive confinements and densities and the qualitative description of the ignition mechanism are quite similar for deflagrations produced by the two methods.

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.