Shock & Detonation Physics

Primarily our work is focused in the following three general areas:

1. Development of tools and systems that combine shock and detonation physics, chemistry and engineering. Typically these developments are aimed at specific programs and application spaces.
2. Generalized fragment insult on systems that contain energetic materials. This is a difficult problem which, in our opinion, must be undergirded by vigilant efforts to create and develop new diagnostics and modeling capabilities. For example, the pursuit of new ways to measure and model temperature and wave shape internal to reacting heterogeneous explosives over relevant space and time scales must found the development of useful predictive capabilities for system response to generalized fragment insult. Many of the scenarios for which predictive capabilities are needed require physical processes that are transported over disparate scales that differ by six to eight orders of magnitude. We expect, for example, that physical process included within the definition of a continuum element must vary in time and space.
3. Material and system Characterization, including basic shock and detonation measurements, as well as the testing and functionality of high explosives systems. Typically these developments are aimed at specific programs and application spaces.

Typically deployed diagnostics and modeling capabilities that are applied to benchtop to large scale experiments:

1. Multiple 150 keV - 1 MeV x-ray systems
2. High end camera systems
   • Various fast framing cameras
   • High-speed video cameras
   • IR cameras
3. Various types of stress gauges for measuring large stresses and rates (typically shocks)
4. A suite of time-of-arrival and blast overpressure diagnostics
5. Portable guns
6. Institutional capabilities
   • Large-scale x-ray machines
   • Firing site capabilities
   • Large-scale gas-gun capabilities
7. Modeling and simulation
   • Hydrocode simulation capabilities
   • Data analysis
   • Programming and modeling