V. N. Mineev

POLARIZATION PROBE STUDY OF THE INITIATION OF DETONATION IN AN EXPLOSIVE BY SHOCK WAVES

It has been shown [1-3] that electrical polarization of an explosive substance during shock compression, that is, shock polarization, is a source of information on the physical and chemical transformations of the explosive behind the shock and detonation fronts. When the detonation is triggered by a shock wave of amplitude p less than the Jouguet pressure pj, it is possible to determine the moment the detonation begins and its delay time T d [3] from an oscilloscope trace of the polarization current I(t). However, from the quantitative standpoint the results of [3] are rather uncertain, since the values of rd found for hexolite had a large scatter, >50%, and the sign of the initial jump in the polarization current, Io [Io = I(to)], where to is the moment the shock wave arrives at the sample,* changed from sample to sample for p = const.