Determination of Shock Sensitivity

The minimum shock wave pressure that causes complete detonation of the explosive under test is a measure of shock sensitivity of the explosive and is determined with the help of a gap test . The principle of this test is to subject the explosive under test to the action of a shock wave of known pressure generated by means of a calibrated donor charge and a shock wave pressure attenuator. 

The extent of detonation of an explosive, that is, partial detonation or complete detonation is concluded on the basis of mechanical effects hole cutting in a steel plate, dent depth in a witness steel block or compression of a copper cylinder, produced as a result of detonation of explosive under test. There are several variants of the gap test which have been the subject of investigation by several researchers described in the literature [74—77]. 

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As will be shown in the next section, in many exptl determinations of shock sensitivity the input shock travels thru an inert medium (barrier) before it enters the test sample. In some of the early studies of shock sensitivity of expls, shocks were characterized by their propagation velocity U in the inert barrier (Ref 2). As will be shown... 

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