A study of the microstructure of pressed tatb and its evolution after several kinds of insults

摘要

Because sensitivity of an explosive is highly controlled by microstructure, it is important to be able to observe and characterize it. We chose reflection optical microscopy to document the microstructure of pressed explosives. A method to polish the samples was carefully designed to avoid artifacts. The microstructure of a pressed TATB-based explosive was then qualitatively described. To understand the effect of damage on sensitivity, samples have been submitted to various kinds of thermal threats (oven, local and brutal heating, frozen combustion) and mechanical threats (drop-weight impact, ultrasonic waves). The resulting damage in the recovered samples has been investigated at the mesostructural scale.