Modeling Proton Radiography results on PBX 9701 shock propagation over a wide temperature range

Recent proton radiography (pRad) experiments on Plastic Bonded Explosive (PBX) 9701 (DAAF and FK-800) were executed at three temperatures: -52oC, Ambient, and +74oC. The goal of the experimental series was to see whether dead zones existed in this material, and whether it

showed any cold temperature effect on performance. From the data that we have already gathered on PBX 90701 our pre-shot predictions using recently developed Equations of State (EOS) say that no dead zone will be seen and no temperature variations will appear. As PBX 9701 is a candidate for Insensitive High Explosive (IHE) designation, temperature

invariance would be very favorable to its future.



We will present the pRad results compared with our models as well as other small scale experiments with PBX 9701 (Furballs). Utilizing detonation front and Machine Learning (ML) we will show comparisons of the data with our models at different resolutions. Since we have not seen a high explosive (HE) behave this way before, our models are not prepared to deal with such a new phenomenon.