The use of the [H$_2$O–CO$_2$] arbitrary decomposition assumption to predict the performance of condensed high explosives

The plate dent test is one of the simplest tools for fast determination of the detonation pressure. The test is based on the observation that the detonation pressure correlates with the depth of the dent produced by a detonating explosive on a metal witness plate. The present study is aimed at developing a model for estimating the dent depth, which is used not only to obtain the detonation pressure, but also to evaluate the brisance relative to a reference explosive. It is shown that the experimental dent depth values for CHNO and CHNOClF explosives can be successfully reproduced by a model based on few parameters, namely: loading density, number of moles of gaseous detonation products per gram of the explosive, and average molecular weight of the gaseous products, where the number of moles and the mean molecular weight of the gaseous products are calculated according to the [H$_2$O–CO$_2$] arbitrary decomposition assumption. Furthermore, the predicted values of the dent depth and the Kamlet–Jacobs method are used to estimate the detonation pressure for 37 explosives. The results show that the pressures obtained on the basis of the dent depth values are in better agreement with experimental/thermochemical code data than the predictions of the Kamlet–Jacobs method.