Numerical and Experimental Study of Explosive Blast Waves

During the development of new explosives, the formation and propagation of blast waves and their interaction with objects play an important role in assessing performance. To investigate the suitability of an explosive, Fraunhofer ICT uses a detonation chamber equipped with a pressure lance, enabling the measurement of blast pressure over time at three distances (0.95 m, 1.00 m, and 1.05 m) within the near-field of the detonation. Simulations complement these experiments to examine more challenging phenomena during the initiation and reaction of the explosive, as well as the generation and expansion of the blast wave. Therefore, at Fraunhofer ICT, various simulation programs such as IMPETUS, SPEED, and OpenFOAM are available for blast wave modeling. This work aims to test an in-house cast-cured RDX-based formulation (HX530) at the ICT Test Center and model the experiment with these three programs, assessing their accuracy and usability. The results of the calculations are evaluated and compared with the experimental results.