Quantitative prediction and ranking of the shock sensitivity ofexplosives via reactive molecular dynamics simulations

A deep understanding of explosive sensitivities and their factors is important for safe and reliable applications.However,quantitative prediction of the sensitivities is difficult.Here,reactive molecular dynamics simulation models for high-speed piston impacts on explosive supercells were established.Simulations were also performed to investigate shock-induced reactions of various high-energy explosives.The fraction of reacted explosive molecules in an initial supercell changed linearly with the propagation distance of the shock-wave front.The corresponding slope could be used as a reaction rate for a specific shock-loading velocity.Reaction rates that varied with the shock-loading pressure exhibited two-stage linearities with different slopes.The two inflection points corresponded to the initial and accelerated reactions,which respectively correlated to the thresholds of shock-induced ignition and detonation.Therefore,the ignition and detonation critical pressures could be determined.The sensitivity could then be a quantitative prediction of the critical pressure.The accuracies of the quantitative shock sensitivity predictions were verified by comparing the impact and shock sensitivities of common explosives and the characteristics of anisotropic shock-induced reactions.Molecular dynamics simulations quantitatively predict and rank shock sensitivities by using only crystal structures of the explosives.Overall,this method will enable the design and safe use of explosives.

A melt-cast Duan-Zhang-Kim mesoscopic reaction rate model and experiment for shock initiation of melt-cast explosives

A melt-cast Duan-Zhang-Kim(DZK)mesoscopic reaction rate model is developed for the shock initiation of melt-cast explosives based on the pore collapse hot-spot ignition mechanism.A series of shock initiation experiments was performed for the Comp B melt-cast explosive to estimate effects of the loading pressure and the particle size of granular explosive component,and the mesoscopic model is validated against the experimental data.Further numerical simulations indicate that the initial density and formula proportion greatly affect the hot-spot ignition of melt-cast explosives.

Theoretical Studies on Two Possible Conformers of TNDAIW at Hartree-Fock Level

Tetranitrodiazidoacetylhexaazaisowurtzitane (TNDAIW) is a novel polyazapolycyclic caged polyazidonitramine explosive first synthesized in our laboratory. Two possible conformers of TNDAIW with C_s symmetry were fully optimized using the HF/6-31G(d) level of theory. TNDAIW with the optimized geometries probably exists, and is predicted to be more stable than epsilon-hexanitrohexaazoisowurtzitane (epsilon-CL-20) based on the lengths of N-N, C-C and C-N bonds. The impact and shock sensitivities are lower for the possible conformers of TNDAIW than those for epsilon-CL-20. TNDAIW with the optimized possible conformers is estimated to be a promising novel high energy density explosive.