To identify the mechanism by which pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) is initiated in Exploding Bridgewire (EBW) detonators a series of studies were performed in which the energy was tracked from fireset to detonator output. One of the outstanding questions arising out of these studies was how much, if any, of the energy delivered post bridgewire burst contributes to the performance of the detonator. A capacitor discharge fireset was developed which was capable of limiting the energy deposited in the system post-burst by diverting a pre-selected portion of the energy away from the detonator. This enabled the amount of energy delivered to the detonator to be controlled. The energy delivered to the bridgewire, as determined by voltage and current probes, was varied and the effect on the expansion speed of unconfined bridgewires and detonator functioning time was determined.
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