Experimental Method for Explosion Effect Determination

The study of the fragmentation originated from explosions is a challenging task, considering the conditions in which the phenomena occur. Those conditions are directly related with the nature of the explosion, which generates a high speed response of every part of the system; including dynamic behaviours from the chemical, mechanical, and aerodynamical point of view. This study presents an experimental approach to the determination of fragmentation characteristics, isolating the fragmentation effects from the shockwave. Based on standard ITOP 4-2-813, measurement methodology and instrumentation device were developed and implemented. This standard provides simple guidelines for designing experiments for explosion effects, taking into account the symmetric geometry of the explosive specimen for simplifying data recollection, by measuring mass-size in one half of a test arena and velocity of fragments in the opposite symmetric half. Velocity was assessed by microcontroller driven electronic hardware for which a custom barrier sensor was designed for manufacturing with single layer thin (thickness <0.3 mm) FR-4 copper clad. The speed reduction of a typical fragment was verified by simulation using coupled SPH-Lagrange. Finally, a sample experiment was done for checking the operation of the system, finding an ease of use in field.