Modeling spherical explosions with aluminized energetic materials

This paper deals with the numerical solution and validation of a reactive flow model dedicated to the study of spherical explosions with an aluminized energetic material. Situations related to air blast as well as underwater explosions are examined. Such situations involve multiscale phenomena associated with the detonation reaction zone, the aluminium reaction zone, the shock propagation distance and the bubble oscillation period. A detonation tracking method is developed in order to avoid the detonation structure computation. An ALE formulation is combined to the detonation tracking method in order to solve the material interface between detonation products and the environment as well as shock propagation. The model and the algorithm are then validated over a wide range of spherical explosions involving several types of explosives, both in air and liquid water environment. Large-scale experiments have been done in order to determine the blast wave effects with explosive compositions of variable aluminium content. In all situations the agreement between computed and experimental results is very good.