Explosively Loaded Metallic Cylinders. II

Abstract

High‐speed oscillographic pin technique was used to determine the radial displacement as a function of time for thin‐walled copper cylinders internally loaded with high explosive (60RDX/40TNT). The results were compared with theoretical calculations based on G. I. Taylor's model for the expansion of an incompressible cylinder and on the additional assumption that the detonation products behaved as an adiabatically expanding polytropic gas. Theoretical calculations and experimental measurements were made for cylinders having a 0.500‐in. inside diameter and seven different wall thicknesses ranging from 0.030 in. to 0.122 in. Although the experimental results agree with the calculated velocities at the larger radii, the data do not follow the theory in detail. During the initial expansion, the measurements show that the cylinder does not behave as an incompressible fluid, but is accelerated in a step‐wise fashion characteristic of motion produced by shock waves.