High-Speed Photography of Detonation Propagation in Dynamically Precompressed Liquid Explosives

The propagation of detonation in shock compressed nitromethane was observed with a high speed framing camera. The test explosive, nitromethane, was compressed by a reverberating shock wave to pressures on the order of 10~GPa prior to being detonated by a secondary detonation event. The pressure and density in the test explosive prior to detonation was determined using two methods: manganin strain gauge measurements and LS-DYNA simulations. The velocity of the detonation front was determined from consecutive frames and correlated to the density of the explosive post-reverberating shock wave and prior to being detonated. Observing detonation propagation under these non-ambient conditions provides data which can be useful in the validation of equation of state models.