Meso-scale analysis of deformation wave heating in metalized solid explosive

Deformation induced heating of reactive solids is a physically complex process. As such, the effects of meso-structure, component thermomechanical properties, component mass fractions, and porosity on their impact response is not well-understood. In this study, an explicit, 2-D, Lagrangian finite and discrete element technique is used to examine thermomechanical fields in metal-explosive (aluminum-HMX) particle mixtures due to piston supported uniaxial deformation waves. The meso-scale description uses a plane strain, thermoelastic-viscoplastic and friction constitutive theory to describe the motion and deformation of individual particles, and an energy consistent, penalty based method to describe inter-particle contact. The deformation response of material having an initial solid volume fraction of phi(O)(S) = 0.835 is characterized for different metal mass fractions and wave strengths. Predictions indicate that the response can be classified into strength dominated and pressure dominated regions depending on wave strength. Average thermomechanical fields that define the macro-scale wave structure are found to differ both qualitatively and quantitatively between the two regions.