Baratol high explosive

The high explosives, baratol or Composition B-3, are used to produce the plane wave loading into the driver plates. These explosives have been widely studied in substantial work at Los Alamos. Plane waves are introduced into the explosive pads with either P-22 or P-40 plane-wave generators developed at Los Alamos. The Bear system is based on the 56 mm diameter of the P-22, while the larger sample size Bertha system is based on the 102 mmdiam of the P-40. More details on sample dimensions are reported by Graham [87G03]. 

The simplest way of dispersing dyestuffs of good heat resistance is by tamping the dye, mixed with 20% of table salt as an extender and coolant, into a shell, drilling a center hole, and filling it with a high explosive such as 67/33 BaratoL... 

Three types of plane wave generators for explosive systems used in generating dynamic material properties make use of the properties of Baratol and Composition B to form effective lenses. Baratol s slow detonation velocity and Composition B s high detonation velocity, if used in the proper configuration, can convert a spherically diverging wave into an approximate plane wave. The P-40, P-081, and P-120 lenses were used until the middle 1990 s. 

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