International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

Material design guidelines for explosive confinements to

control impact shock-induced detonations based on shock
transmission/reflection analysis
Hyunho Shin*, Woong Lee
Ground Systems Development Centre, Agency for Defence Development, Yuseong, P.O. Box 35-1,
Daejeon, 305-600, South Korea
Received 20 May 2002; received in revised form 8 August 2002

Abstract

Material design guidelines for explosive confinement have been studied from the viewpoint of impact
shock-induced detonation when a projectile impacts onto the confined explosive. The study has been based
on a one-dimensional analysis of the level of the impact shock pressure and transmission/reflection of the
impact shock wave at an interface between confinement wall and explosive. The impact pressure delivered
to the explosive beneath the impacted confinement wall was expected to be maximized when the front cover
material had an intermediate elastic impedance value. The reinforcement of shock pressure in the explosive
near the back or lateral confinement wall, due to the superposition of incident shock wave on the reflected
one from the wall, increased with elastic impedance of the confinement material. The chance of sympathetic
detonation was expected to be reduced by the use of a high impedance material as a confinement. Material
design guidelines for the explosive container, such as munitions casings and reactive cassettes, can be
practically guided by referring to the elastic impedance of a candidate material.
r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Material design; Impact shock; Explosive container; Explosive reactive armour

1. Introduction

Ensuring the response reliability of an explosive to the impact of high velocity projectiles, i.e.,
expecting either detonation or non-detonation depending on the intended use, is of great
importance in the areas such as warhead design, hazard assessment, storage of munitions, and
safety and lethality considerations [1–3]. In general, the impact shock induced detonation

*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shinh@unitel.co.kr (H. Shin).

0734-743X/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 7 3 4 - 7 4 3 X ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 7 5 - 1
466 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

behaviour of an explosive is influenced much by the presence of a confinement to the explosive,

i.e., presence of the container walls. It has been reported that the explosive in a steel container
showed a diminished threshold level of impact for detonation with more violent reaction sustained
for an extended period of time as compared with the unconfined explosive [4]. The role of the
explosive confinement on the detonation behaviour varies depending on the position of the
confinement wall relative to the impact location, i.e., whether the confinement is in the form of
front plate (impacting plate), back plate (confinement wall on the opposite side of the impact
plate), or lateral wall.
In general, the presence of a cover plate in front of an explosive diminishes the detonation
sensitivity of the explosive, as has been known from the early period of explosive sensitivity tests
[5,6]. In the well-known empirical formula, e.g. the Jacobs–Roslund equation [7], the velocity
threshold is modelled to be linearly proportional to the thickness of the cover plate material. In
such explosive target systems, the shock pressure is first generated in the cover plate by the impact
of a projectile, followed by the travelling of the impact shock through the cover plate medium
toward the explosive beneath the plate. Then the shock pressure is transmitted to the explosive
across the cover plate/explosive interface. During the transmission process, based on a one-
dimensional analysis [8,9], only a part of its pressure is transferred to the explosive due to the
mismatch of mechanical impedance (product of stress wave velocity and material density) across
the front cover/explosive interface. Since these two processes, i.e., the pressure generation in the
cover plate and transmission to the explosive, govern the eventual magnitude of the impact shock
loading experienced by the explosive, the change in shock pressure at each process has to be
investigated separately and sequentially. The level of impact shock generation is, in general,
proportional to the shock impedance of the front cover material, whereas the fraction of pressure
transferred across the cover plate/explosive interface is inversely proportional to the shock
impedance of the medium, i.e., the cover plate. This implies that the establishment of a material
design guideline for the front cover confinement requires an in-depth analysis and draws an interest.
The impact shock waves transmitted to the explosive from the cover plate interact with density
discontinuities in the explosive forming hot spots which release chemical energy to the shock wave
[10], which in turn, interacts with more hot spots, resulting in a self-sustained reinforcement of the
shock pressure [11,12]. However, the shock wave is also fetched by a release wave originated either
from the rear surface or the periphery of the projectile [13]. Hence, when the reinforcement
process prevails over the effect of the release wave, detonation occurs in the explosive after
running some distance: a shock wave with a higher initial pressure in the explosive requires less
run distance [14]. On the other hand, when the effect of release wave, which is strongly dependent
on the sharpness of the projectile nose [13], dominates the reinforcement process, detonation fails.
Even though the detonation is suppressed, however, there is another chance of detonation in the
explosive in the area near the explosive/back (lateral) plate interface if an impedance mismatch
exists across the interface. This is because the shock wave can be greatly reinforced due to the
superposition of the reflected pressure from the back plate on the incoming pressure from
the explosive [15]. Hence, it is necessary to investigate how the pressure reinforcement is affected by
the properties of the materials applied to the back (lateral) plate in order to establish a material
design guideline for the back and lateral plates from the viewpoint of the shock wave superposition.
In case a sympathetic detonation occurs, the shock front of a detonating explosive collides with
a confinement wall first, loading an impact shock pressure to the wall. Then the impact shock
 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478 467

travels through the wall, followed by the transmission of the shock pressure to a un-reacted
neighbour explosive. This is qualitatively the same situation as the one in the shock pressure
loading process to the explosive behind the front cover except that the role of projectile impact on
the front cover is substituted for the collision of a detonation shock front. Hence, the effect of
confinement material properties on the shock loading of the un-reacted neighbour explosive also
requires an in-depth analysis.
In the present study, the selection guidelines for the confinement materials for an explosive have
been established separately depending on their locations. The guideline has been based upon a
one-dimensional analysis of the intensity of impact shock generated in the confinement wall and
transmission/reflection of the impact shock wave across the confinement wall/explosive interface.

2. Analysis

2.1. Geometry and assumptions

Fig. 1 schematically depicts the geometry of the one-dimensional analysis model considered in
the present work. For the front cover plate, different types of confinement materials with varying
degree of mechanical impedance have been evaluated in their capability of producing impact
shock pressure by a number of incoming projectile types. Then these materials have been assessed
also in terms of their capability of transmitting the generated pressure to the explosive beneath the
front cover (marked as route A in Fig. 1). Confinement materials as the back (lateral) plate have
been evaluated in terms of the pressure reinforcement in the explosive by the reflected impact
shock from the back plate (marked as route B in Fig. 1). For the case when the explosive in the left
module in Fig. 1 is detonated by an impact shock and the detonation wave front collides with the
(central) lateral wall, suitability of a material as a lateral wall to prevent a sympathetic detonation

Projectile
Front Cover plate

PR PI
Lateral PT Lateral
plate A plate
B
Explosive C
B Explosive

Back plate

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the geometry of the model for the analysis of the transmission and reflection of the
impact shock pressure. PI is the incident pressure to the interface, PR is the reflected pressure, and PT is transmitted
pressure. A, B, and C denote the considered cases of the shock pressure levels in the area near the explosive/confinement
interfaces.
468 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

has been investigated by calculating transmitted pressure to the neighbouring un-reacted explosive
(route C in Fig. 1).
Since the comparison of the confinement materials is the purpose of this work, the diameter of
the projectiles has been assumed to be sufficiently large to ensure a one-dimensional analysis. The
thickness of the confinement and explosive have been arbitrarily chosen (constant for all types of
the confinement materials at a given thickness of the explosive) for the same reason. The rate of
decay of impact shock pressure within either the confinement material or the explosive has been
assumed to be negligible. The relative capability of the confinement materials to transmit or reflect
impact shock waves across the explosive/confinement interface is not expected to be influenced by
such assumptions to allow the establishment of material ranking.

2.2. Materials considered

The candidate materials for the confinement have been polycarbonate (Lexan), quartz,
aluminium, titanium, iron, copper, tantalum, and tungsten in increasing order of the elastic
impedance of the material KE ; which is the product of material density r0 and bulk sound velocity
C: The solid explosive considered in the present work was Composition B, which is a mixture of
about 55 wt% RDX1, and 45 wt% TNT2. The shock parameters for these candidate confinement
materials and explosive have been taken from Marsh [16] and are summarized in Table 1. In this
table, the bulk sound velocity has been taken as the extrapolated US value when UP is zero in the
shock velocity ðUS Þ-particle velocity ðUP Þ diagram [16]. The material types and velocities of the
potential projectiles impacting on the front cover of the explosive considered in this work are
small calibre iron projectile at the impact velocity of 1100 m s1 ; large calibre tungsten long-rod
projectile at 1600 m s1 ; explosively formed projectile (EFP) of either copper or tantalum at
2500 m s1 ; iron fragment at 2650 m s1 [17], and copper jet at 7000 m s1 : The shock parameters
for these projectile materials are also listed in Table 1.

2.3. Impact shock generated at the front cover plate

The magnitude of impact shock generated in a front confinement material was determined by
the impedance matching technique [8,9], graphically illustrated in Fig. 2(a). In this method, the
shock pressure in the projectile, P1 ; and the impact shock in the front confinement material, P2 ; is
given by
P1 ¼ r01 C1 ðV  UP2 Þ þ r01 S1 ðV  UP2 Þ2 ; ð1Þ

2
P2 ¼ r02 C2 UP2 þ r02 S2 UP2 ; ð2Þ
where r0 is the density of material before the arrival of shock wave, UP is the particle velocity, V is
the projectile velocity, C is the bulk sound velocity, and S is the slope in shock velocity–particle
velocity relation. The subscripts 1 and 2 denote projectile and confinement material, respectively.
Since the pressures in the impact-induced compressed region at the front confinement material
1
No. X in Research Department explosive list (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine).
2
Trinitrotoluene.
 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478 469

Table 1
Shock parameters for the materials considered in the analysis of shock pressures
Materials Density, r0 Bulk sound Slope in US –UP Elastic impedance,
ðkg m3 Þ velocity, C ðkm s1 Þ relation, S KE ð106 kg m2 s1 Þ
Polycarbonate (Lexan) 1,193 2.40 1.39 2.62
Composition B 1,715 3.08 2.01 5.28
Quartz 2,145 3.00 1.36 6.44
Aluminium (2024) 2,785 5.37 1.29 14.96
Titanium 4,527 4.95 1.01 22.41
Iron 7,856 3.68 1.66 28.91
Copper 8,924 3.91 1.51 34.89
Tantalum 16,660 3.43 1.19 57.13
Tungsten 19,240 4.04 1.23 77.71

1 2 1R
1
2
Presure
Presure

P
P
PT
V V

UP UP UP,T

(a) Plate velocity (b) Plate velocity

Fig. 2. Graphical illustrations for the impedance matching technique. Calculations for (a) impact pressure, P; between
projectile, 1, and cover plate, 2, and (b) transmitted pressure, PT ; from medium 1 to 2 across the material interface.

and the projectile are the same, i.e., P1 ¼ P2 at the shocked volume, Eqs. (1) and (2) are
numerically solved to yield the level of the impact shock pressure generated.

2.4. Shock pressure transmission across a material interface

When a shock pressure travelling in a medium e.g., the front cover or the central wall in Fig. 1,
encounters an interface beyond which impedance is lowered, only a part of shock pressure in the
medium is transmitted to the next medium (either route A or C), and the rest of it is reflected from
the interface [8,9]. The conceptual process to obtain the transmitted pressure from medium 1 to 2
across a material interface is graphically shown in Fig. 2(b) while this process has been performed
numerically in this work. Suppose that a shock wave in pressure P is travelling toward the
material interface at a particle velocity of UP : As shown in Fig. 2(b), the pressure–particle velocity
relation for medium 1 (Hugoniot 1) is first constructed, followed by the reversing of the curve with
470 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

respect to the point ðUP ; PÞ to get the reverse Hugoniot, 1R. Then the transmitted pressure to
medium 2, PT ; can be determined by solving the Hugoniot equations 1R and 2 for UP;T [8,9].

2.5. Local pressure due to the reflection from the back (lateral) plate

The reflected component of the travelling shock wave from a material interface (route B in
Fig. 1) is superposed to the incoming shock component at the location near the interface. The
distance of superposition from the interface depends on the duration of the incident shock wave.
The superposed pressure at such a local location, PI þ PR has been obtained from PT through the
relation [8,9],
PI þ PR ¼ PT ; ð3Þ
where PI is the incident pressure, PR is the reflected pressure, and PT is the transmitted pressure.
In other words, the superposed local pressure in the explosive using the reflection was obtained by
calculating the transmitted pressure PT to the confinement by the procedure described in Section
2.4. Note that the reflected pressure PR is tensile when the shock impedance (product of initial
density, r0 ; and shock velocity, US ) of the medium 2, KS2 ; is lower than that of medium 1 (the
situation in Section 2.4, i.e., front plate/explosive interface) and hence the superposed pressure at
the local area near the interface is lower than the incident pressure. However, when KS1 oKS2 ; the
reflected pressure PR is compressive (the case considered herein, i.e., explosive/back plate
interface) and hence the pressure is reinforced locally.

2.6. Detonation pressure transmitted to neighbour explosive

Sympathetic detonation of an explosive in a module can be prevented if the pressure

transmitted from an exploding module is sufficiently low (e.g., via route C in Fig. 1). Hence the
capability of the lateral material to prevent the sympathetic detonation was investigated by
assessing the transmitted pressure to the un-reacted explosive in the right module in Fig. 1, when
the detonation shock front collides with the lateral wall from the left module. In order to
determine the generated pressure in the (central) lateral wall by the collision of the detonation
front, the reverse Hugoniot for detonating Composition B taken from Jones [18] and the
Hugoniots for a confinement materials [16] have been used for the methodology described in
Section 2.3. Then the wall pressure has been used as input pressure to get the transmitted pressure
to the un-reacted explosive in the right module by the methodology in Section 2.4.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Impact shock pressure in the front cover

Fig. 3 shows the pressure–particle velocity relations (Hugoniots) of the different types of the
front cover plate materials (Eq. (2)) and the reverse Hugoniots for the projectile materials
(Eq. (1)), constructed using the shock parameters in Table 1. The impact shock pressures have
been obtained by reading the intersections of the curves between the Hugoniots and the reverse
 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478 471

400

er
pp
n
350

l
gste

ee
Co

St

um
Tun

m
300

ni
talu

ta
Ti
Pressure/GPa

Tan
250 m
Ta-EFP inu
um
200
Cu-Jet Al

artz
150 W
-K Qu
E
100
Fe-K
E P ate
-EF arbon
50 Cu Polyc
Fe-Fragment
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Particle velocity/kms-1
Fig. 3. Hugoniots for candidate front cover materials and reverse Hugoniots for projectile materials.

120 400
Ta-EFP
Fe-Fragment
Cu-EFP Cu-Jet
100 350
W-Large KE
Fe-Small KE

300
80
Pressure/GPa
Pressure/GPa

250
60

200

40
150

20
100

0 50
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
6 -2 -1 6 -2 -1
(a) Elastic impedance/10 kg m s (b) Elastic impedance/10 kg m s
Fig. 4. Change in impact shock pressure generated at the front cover as a function of elastic impedance of the cover
plate material for different types of projectiles.

Hugoniots in Fig. 3. The determined impact shock pressures have been then described as a
function of elastic impedance, KE ; of the plate material for different types of incoming threat
projectiles and the result is shown in Fig. 4. As can be seen in Fig. 4, the levels of the impact
472 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

pressures generated by the number of threats show fairly good correlations to the elastic
impedance of the front cover material. The materials with a low impedance such as polycarbonate
ðKE ¼ 2:62  106 kg m2 s1 Þ produces less impact pressures while a high impedance material
such as tungsten ðKE ¼ 77:11  106 kg m2 s1 Þ generates very high impact pressures. In
principle, the level of the impact shock pressure by a given projectile is proportional to the
shock impedance KS ð¼ r0 US Þ of the target by the relation P ¼ KS UP [8,9]. However, the shock
impedance is dependent on the shock velocity US which, in turn, is dependent upon the level of
threats, i.e., it has to be calculated for each impact situation under consideration. Hence the shock
impedance does not allow a quick reference to a designer while the elastic impedance is well
documented and readily available. Therefore, in Fig. 4, we have aimed to plot the impact pressure
levels as a function of elastic impedance, KE ð¼ r0 CÞ which would provide a more convenient way
to estimate an impact shock pressure generated in a material. From the good correlation of the
generated impact pressure with elastic impedance of the front cover material, the relative shock
performance of an arbitrary material is expected to be readily estimated by interpolating the
curves in Fig. 4 for the elastic impedance of the material to be used.

3.2. Shock pressures transmitted to explosive from the front cover

Fig. 5 shows the change in the transmitted pressures to the explosive from the front cover plate
(route A in Fig. 1) as a function of the elastic impedance of the cover plate material. As shown in

Cu-Jet
Ta-EFP
120 Fe-Fragment
Cu-EFP
W-Large KE
Fe-Small KE

100
Pressure/GPa

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
6 -2 -1
Elastic impedance/10 kg m s
Fig. 5. Change in impact shock pressure loaded to the explosive beneath the front cover plate as a function of the
impedance of the front cover material for different types of projectiles.
 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478 473

Fig. 5, pressure load to the explosive rises with higher elastic impedance of the cover plate
material and then reaches a maximum value at an intermediate impedance value before decreasing
with a further increase in impedance. For the impacts by the small calibre iron (steel) projectile,
the maximum pressure load to the explosive is predicted when the impedance of the cover plate is
about 14:96  106 kg m2 s1 (aluminium), whereas maximums are reached at rather a higher
impedance, namely, about 22:41  106 kg m2 s1 (titanium) for other types of threats. In Fig. 5,
the explosive pressure beneath an aluminium cover plate is higher than that behind a steel (iron)
plate ð28:91  106 kg m2 s1 Þ for a small calibre steel projectile. Such a result is supported by
experimental findings that the explosive covered with aluminium plates showed lower threshold
velocities for detonation by the impact of steel projectiles than the ones covered with steel
[5,19,20].
Though the pressures generated in the front cover was simply dependent upon the impedance of
the cover plate material in Fig. 4, the change in the pressure loadings of the explosive beneath the
cover plate shown in Fig. 5 does not follow the same trend. According to a one-dimensional
analysis [8,9], the ratio of transmitted pressure to the incident pressure across an interface of two
media with different mechanical impedances is
PT 2K2
¼ ; ð4Þ
PI K2 þ K1
where the subscript numbers 1 and 2 denote the medium of incident shock wave and that of
transmitted one, respectively, and K is the mechanical impedance in either shock or elastic regime.
The use of US for K (K turns to be shock impedance in this case) requires detailed knowledge of
shock pressure and particle velocity, which means that US is case dependent as mentioned before.
However, the use of C as an approximation for K (K is elastic impedance in this case), i.e., Eq. (4)
in the elastic pressure limit, can illustrate the role of the interface in transmission and reflection of
a pressure wave with a reasonable accuracy. The fraction of the pressure transmitted across the
cover plate/explosive interface calculated this way is shown in Table 2 with the resultant delivered
pressure to the explosive for the case when Cu-EFP impacts onto the front cover. The result in
Table 2 qualitatively explains quite well the physical nature associated with the curves in Fig. 5.
As can be seen in Table 2, even though the level of generated impact shock pressure is low in the
low impedance material such as quartz front cover, this material transmits a higher percentage of
impact shock pressure into the explosive. However, the high impedance material such as tungsten,
which generates a higher impact pressure, transmits a lower percentage of shock pressure into the
explosive. Hence, the materials with intermediate impedances, which generate and transmit
intermediate levels of pressure, result in the maximal pressure loading to the explosive.
If the impedance of the cover plate material is lower than that of the explosive (KE1 oKE2 ), it is
inferred from Eq. (4) that PT =PI exceeds unity and vice versa for the case when KE1 > KE2 (see
Table 2). For instance, when the polycarbonate ð2:62  106 kg m2 s1 Þ is employed as a front
cover, the pressure transmitted to the explosive (e.g., 20:29 GPa for Ta-EFP in Fig. 5) is higher
than the level of the generated pressure (14:93 GPa for Ta-EFP in Fig. 4(a)), while only a part of
the generated pressure is transmitted to the explosive for the cases of other materials studied in
this work.
When the explosive container insensitive to the impact shock-induced detonation is required, in
the light of Fig. 5, the front cover materials with intermediate impedances such as aluminium,
474 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

Table 2
Percentage of pressure transmittance from the front cover plate to the explosive, which explains the trend in Figs. 4 and
5 qualitatively
Materials Elastic Generated Fraction of the Delivered
impedance, K pressure by transmitted pressure to the
ð106 kg m2 s1 Þ CU-EFP pressure explosive
impact (GPa)
Polycarbonate (Lexan) 2.62 13.83 1.34 18.48
Quartz 6.44 23.54 0.90 21.22
Aluminium 14.96 36.05 0.52 18.82
Titanium 22.41 45.56 0.38 17.38
Iron 28.91 60.42 0.31 18.67
Copper 34.89 64.67 0.26 17.01
Tantalum 57.13 80.18 0.17 13.57
Tungsten 77.71 89.85 0.13 11.44

steel, and copper have to be avoided in the material design process for the container. Either the
low impedance material such as polycarbonate or a material with a high impedance such as
tungsten is appropriate provided that mass and structural integrity of the materials are satisfied.
On the other hand, when a reactive cassette3 for an explosive reactive armour [21] is designed to be
operative against a large calibre kinetic energy projectile (usually based on tungsten) at a lowered
impact velocity, where a high detonation sensitivity is required, materials with an intermediate
impedance such as aluminium and steel is preferred as a front cover material. Considering mass
efficiency in addition to the transmitted pressure level itself, it is noted that aluminium ðr0 ¼
2785 kg m3 Þ is more efficient than iron ðr0 ¼ 7856 kg m3 Þ in this respect.

3.3. Local shock pressure by the reflection from the back or lateral plate

Fig. 6 shows the change in reinforced pressure in the explosive near the confinement wall, due to
the superposition of the reflected pressure from the wall (route B in Fig. 1) on the incident one, as
a function of impedance of the plate material. The initial incident (input) pressures to the back
(lateral) plate have been assumed to be up to about 30 GPa; i.e., 5, 10, 20, and 30 GPa: It is
possible that pressure levels higher than this value might have already induced detonation before
arriving at the back plate because the reaction rate of the explosive at above the Chapmann–
Jouget pressure (about 29:5 GPa for Composition B) is extremely high, i.e., more than 100 ms1
[12]. Thus, if the initial incident pressure is higher than this level, investigation of the role of the
confinement wall either to un-change or change the un-reacted explosive to the detonated state is
meaningless. As shown in Fig. 6, the superposed pressure levels in the explosive simply increase as
a material with a higher impedance is applied as the confinement. The increase is more rapid in the
3
Explosive confined in a thin walled container with the explosive thickness far less than the lateral size. In general, the
unwanted detonation of the cassette by the small caliber projectiles is prevented by an external structural design element
such as the pre-armoring, which can allow a limited increase in detonation sensitivity of the reactive cassette hidden in
the armoured structure [21].
 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478 475

80
30GPa input
20GPa input
70 10GPa input
5GPa input

60

50
Pressure/GPa

40

30

20

10

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
6 -2 -1
Elastic impedance/10 kg m s
Fig. 6. Change in reinforced shock pressure ðPI þ PR Þ in the explosive on the impact side near the back (lateral)
confinement for different levels of the incident pressures to the confinement.

low impedance regime than in the high impedance range. In Fig. 6, it is also noted that the
superposed pressure level by the polycarbonate plate ðKE ¼ 2:62  106 kg m2 s1 Þ is less than the
incident pressure, while it is higher for other materials considered in this study. This is because
the incident shock pressure is reflected as a tensile component when the impedance of the back
(lateral) plate material is lower than that of the explosive which is 5:28  106 kg m2 s1 for
Composition B. From Fig. 6, it is expected that applying low impedance materials such as
polycarbonate or quartz is desirable as a back (lateral) plate material from the viewpoint of
ensuring a low detonation sensitivity. If it is required to decrease the threshold impact level for
detonation especially in the back plate for a certain case such as the reactive cassette as mentioned
before, the use of a high impedance material is beneficial.

3.4. Detonation shock pressure transmitted to a neighbouring explosive

The pressure generated in the (central) lateral wall in Fig. 1, when a detonation front in the left
module collides with it, has been determined for a series of confinement materials by finding the
intersections between the Hugoniots for the confinement materials and the reverse Hugoniot for
the detonating Composition B [18], both of which area shown in Fig. 7. The determined shock
pressure in the confinement wall are plotted in Fig. 8 as a function of elastic impedance of the wall
476 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

60

p er

ium
Iron

m
Cop

inu
50

an
ten

um
Tit
Tungs

Al

rtz
lum

ua
Pressure/GPa
40

Q
Tanta
ate
rb on
30 ly ca
Po

20
Com
p. B
10

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

Particle velocity/kms-1

Fig. 7. Hugoniots for candidate lateral wall materials and reverse Hugoniot for detonating Composition B colliding
into the (central) lateral wall from the left module shown in Fig. 1.

60
Confinement press.
55 Neighbour explosive press.

50

45

40
Pressure/GPa

35

30

25

20

15

10

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
6 -2 -1
Elastic impedance/10 kg m s
Fig. 8. Change in shock pressure in the (central) lateral wall by the impact of detonation wave front from the left
module (see Fig. 1) and change in the eventually transmitted shock pressure to the un-reacted explosive in the right
module, both of which are plotted as functions of elastic impedance of the (central) lateral wall material.
 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478 477

material. The shock pressure eventually delivered to the un-reacted explosive in the right
module (route C in Fig. 1) is also shown in Fig. 8. As shown in Fig. 8, the shock pressure
generated in the lateral wall increases as the elastic impedance of the lateral wall increases—
tungsten shows the highest pressure among the considered materials. However, it is noticed that
the shock pressure transmitted to the neighbour explosive is lowest for tungsten. As mentioned in
Section 3.2, this is because only a part of the generated pressure in the lateral wall is transmitted to
the next medium, percentage of which is inversely proportional to the shock impedance of the
lateral wall.
From this, the overall material ranking is interpreted to be governed by the transmission/
reflection properties of the interface between the central wall and the un-reacted explosive on the
right side. This means that the difference in the generated pressure in the central wall material
was relatively less significant among different materials. Thus, material selection from the
viewpoint of the minimum pressure generation in the lateral wall itself would mislead the
material design process for minimizing the sympathetic detonation. From Fig. 8, combining
both the pressure generation in the wall as well as transmission to the neighbour explosive, the use
of a high impedance material is expected to minimize the chance of sympathetic detonation
eventually.
In Fig. 8, it is noted that, for polycarbonate confinement wall, the shock pressure
delivered to the explosive in the right module is larger than the one transmitted to the wall
itself while vice versa for other materials. This results from the fact that the shock impedance of
polycarbonate wall is less than that of the next medium, i.e., the un-reacted explosive as
mentioned in Section 3.2.

4. Summary and conclusions

Impact pressure generated in the explosive casing and reflection/transmission of the impact
shock wave at the interfaces of container wall/Composition B explosive have been studied based
on a one-dimensional analysis in order to investigate the material design guidelines for an
explosive confinement. The impact shock pressure generated in the explosive confined by various
container materials showed a fair correlation to the elastic impedance of the confinement material
for different threat types. The front cover material with an intermediate elastic impedance value
yielded a maximal impact pressure delivered to the explosive beneath the front cover. The
reinforced impact shock pressure in the explosive near the back (lateral) plate, due to the
superposition of incident pressure on the reflected one from the plate, increased with elastic
impedance of the material. While the pressure generated in a confinement wall by the impact of a
detonation wave front was proportional to the material impedance, the eventually delivered
pressure to the neighbouring explosive was inversely proportional to the material impedance,
indicating that the use of a high impedance material reduces the chance of a sympathetic
detonation. Material design guidelines for the applications of the explosive container, such as
munitions casings and reactive cassettes, can be practically guided by referring to the elastic
impedance of the candidate materials and interpolating and applying the result of the current
work.
478 H. Shin, W. Lee / International Journal of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 465–478

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