Temperature-dependent Shock Initiation of CL-20-based High Explosives

To investigate the effects of temperature on the shock initiation characteristics of hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (CL-20), shock initiation experiments on heated C-1 explosive (94% epsilon phase CL-20, and 6% binder, by weight) were performed at temperatures of 20 °C, 48 °C, 75 °C, 95 °C, 125 °C, 142 °C, and 175 °C. An explosive driven flyer device was used to initiate the C-1 charges and manganin pressure gauges were embedded in the C-1 specimen to record the pressure changes with time. Our results show that C-1 becomes more sensitive as the temperature is increased from 20 °C to 95 °C. The ε to γ phase transition in CL-20 occurs at 125 °C; C-1 with CL-20 in the γ phase at 142 °C is less shock sensitive than C-1 with CL-20 in the ε phase at 95 °C or 75 °C. Compared with C-1 at 142 °C, C-1 at 175 °C shows a dramatic increase in shock sensitivity. An ignition and growth reactive flow model was used to simulate the shock initiation of C-1 at various temperatures, and the parameters were obtained by fitting the experimental data. With this parameter set, the shock initiation characteristics of C-1 for temperatures between 20 °C and 175 °C can be derived.