Thermal cook-off of an HMX based explosive: Pressure gauge experiments and modeling

Safety issues related to thermal cook-off are important for handling and storing explosive devices. Violence of an event as a function of confinement is important for prediction of collateral events. There are major issues which require an understanding of the following events: (1) transit to detonation of a pressure wave from a cook-off event, (2) sensitivity of changes in HMX-based explosives with thermally induced phase transitions, and (3) the potential danger of neighboring explosive devices being affected by a cook-off reaction. Results of cook-off events of known size, confinement, and thermal history allow for development and/or calibration of computer models for calculating events that are difficult to measure experimentally.