EFFECT OF DIETHYLENETRIAMINE SENSITIZATION ON DETONATION OF NITROMETHANE IN POROUS-MEDIA

The effect of varying the explosive sensitivity for a heterogeneous ex plosive formed of a packed bed of glass beads impregnated with liquid nitromethane (NM) sensitized with diethylenetriamine (DETA) is investi gated. The changes in the dependence of critical charge diameter on be ad size is investigated at concentrations of 5%, 10%, and 15% DETA ove r a range of head diameters from 66 mu m to 2.4 mm. Additional measure ments are also performed on the critical diameter of the homogeneous l iquid explosive itself. Three regions of behavior are identified for t he bead-liquid explosive mixture. For bead sizes above approximately 1 .5 mm, the critical diameter increases drastically as the amount of DE TA is reduced from 15% to 10% and 5%. For bead sizes below approximate ly 1 mm, the critical diameter is nearly unchanged at concentrations o f 10% and 15%. Between 1 and 1.5 mm, a region where the critical diame ter increases sharply is found and detonation failure was observed in charge diameters of up to 60.5 mm. This transition region between the two others is found to be wider at lower DETA concentrations, This sup ports the previous proposition of two distinct mechanisms of detonatio n propagation which depend on the bead size: propagation through the p ores of the media and propagation through the medium material itself.