Method of characterising the structure of a void sensitized explosive composition

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10093591-B2
Application number	US-201214365978-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 13, 2012
Priority date	Dec 16, 2011
Publication date	Oct 9, 2018
Grant date	Oct 9, 2018

Abstract

A method of characterizing the structure of a void sensitized liquid energetic material, which method comprises defining the material in terms distribution function, the distribution function representing the fraction of liquid energetic material that occurs at a given point within the void sensitized liquid energetic material.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method of achieving a designed bulk detonation energy output in terms of a ratio of shock energy to heave energy for an explosives composition that comprises sensitizing voids distributed within liquid energetic material and that is formulated by blending together a void sensitized liquid energetic material and a void-free liquid energetic material, the method comprising:
identifying a distribution function template that is representative of a desired ratio of shock energy to heave energy, the distribution function template being characterized by a blending ratio of void sensitized liquid energetic material to void-free liquid energetic material and by a characteristic dimension of void-free liquid energetic material relative to a mean diameter of voids in the void sensitized liquid energetic material;
selecting a density for the explosive composition;
providing a void sensitized liquid energetic material having a mean void diameter and a void-free liquid energetic material that, based on their respective densities and on the blending ratio, would achieve the density selected for the explosive composition; and
formulating the explosive composition by blending together at the blending ratio the void sensitized liquid energetic material and the void-free liquid energetic material, wherein blending is carried out to achieve the characteristic dimension of void-free liquid energetic material relative to the mean diameter of voids in the void sensitized liquid energetic material consistent with the distribution function.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the distribution function is non-Gaussian.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sensitizing voids are gas bubbles.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sensitizing voids are at least one of microballoons, or polystyrene.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the liquid energetic material is an emulsion.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sensitizing voids are gas bubbles having a mean diameter between 20 and 2000 microns.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sensitizing voids have a density below 0.25 g/cc and wherein the voids have a mean diameter in the range of 20 to 2000 microns.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sensitizing voids are at least one of gas bubbles, glass microballoons, plastic microballoons, or expanded polystyrene beads having with a density below 0.25 g/cc and wherein the voids have a mean diameter in the range of 20 to 2000 microns.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the mean diameter of voids is in the range 40 to 500 microns.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the void-sensitized liquid energetic material and void-free liquid energetic material are blended by laminar mixing using a static mixer.

Assignees

• Orica Int Pte Ltd

Inventors

• Cooper John
• Kirby Ian John
• Sujansky Vladimir
• Chan Sek K

Classifications

• C06B31/00 Primary

  Compositions containing an inorganic nitrogen-oxygen salt · CPC title

• G01N33/22

  Fuels; Explosives · CPC title

• C06B45/00 Primary

  Compositions or products which are defined by structure or arrangement of component of product (explosive charges of particular form or shape F42B1/00, F42B3/00) · CPC title

• C06B23/004

  Chemical sensitisers · CPC title

• C06B23/003

  Porous or hollow inert particles (preparation C06B21/0091) · CPC title