Ignition and Deflagration of Potassium Picrate (KP) And KP/Explosives Mixtures: Low-Voltage, Nonprimary Detonators

摘要

Potassium picrate (KP) has been examined as a material which can be easily ignited to deflagration by a hot wire for application in low-voltage detonators which contain no primary explosives. KP can be ignited by a 0.05-mm-dia Nichrome wire at the 1-A/1-W level. KP mechanically blended with PETN or HMX in 10/90% by mass mixtures exhibit similar hot-wire ignition behavior to pure KP. These deflagrating mixtures generate higher pressures than pure KP and are therefore more useful as donor charges for accelerating an impact plate onto an acceptor charge or for driving a stress wave into a deflagration-to-detonation transition charge. Ignition and deflagration of KP and KP/explosives mixtures have been studied in terms of their dependence on explosive, electrical, and configuration parameters. These results are applied to the development of detonators of two types, flying plate detonators and deflagration-to-detonation transition detonators. (ERA citation 03:050956)