Compression Strengthening of Plastic Bonded Explosives

• Published in: Microscopy and microanalysis 1997-08, Vol.3 (S2), p.1249-1250
• Main Authors: Peterson, Paul D, Idar, Deanne J, Gardner, John S
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1431-9276; 1435-8115
• DOI: 10.1017/S1431927600013131

A recent study concluded that the most potentially dangerous scenarios for accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon were those involving weak thermal or mechanical shocks. For this reason, more data are needed to understand the material behavior of nuclear constituents under low strain rate scenarios. One of the components of many of these types of weapons is known as Plastic Bonded eXplosives (PBX). PBX is a paniculate composite material made of a hard phase explosive carried in a soft phase polymer binder. Recent work has showed that the stiffness of PBX increased under low rate compressive loading. This behavior was attributed to the shape of the test samples and cross-linking within the elastomer binder. Another theory proposed that the changing compressive properties could be attributed to the hard phase particles migrating together during material flow. Funk et al. demonstrated an inert material mock of PBX 9501, with the hard phase explosive replaced by granular sugar, also showed the same phenomena of compressive hardening.