High-speed photography for pressure generation using the underwater explosion of spiral detonating cord

in recent years we have devoted our efforts to the studies on the various shock processing techniques using explosives for the objectives of gaining materials with the good properties. Those techniques include the punch of pipes, shock consolidation of metallic and ceramic powders, explosive welding of amorphous ribbon on the steel or copper substrate, explosive engraving for the art objects and explosive forming of shells and spheres, and the improvement of the permeability of wood by shock wave. However, to a specific processing technique, it needs to control the shock wave for meeting the demands of that processing purpose. One important control is how to increase the strength of underwater shock wave. Therefore, we propose the following method to converge the underwater shock wave by putting a piece of detonating cord in a spiral way. First, the assignment of the spiral shape of detonation was determined from the geometrical consideration and the basic features of the detonation cord itself. Second, the converging process of the underwater shock wave from the explosion of such designed shape of detonating cord was photographically observed by using the high speed camera in the framing form. The spiral shape with the 100 mm distance from detonating start point to the center of the spiral (indicated by r(1)) was selected. They were amounted together with the electric detonator and the detonating cord. The photographs confirm that the underwater shock wave moves toward the spiral center in a convergence way. Third, the pressure nearing the spiral center was measured experimentally by means of the pressure transducers. The distance, D-h, between the detonating cord and the transducer was set to be 272 mm. Compared to the case that the detonating cord was placed in straight way, the maximum pressure in the case with the spiral shape is verified to be unchanged, but the impulse, however, is much improved. This reason may be due to over-greatly set D-h. When the distance D-h was set to 50 mm, the pressure measurement was made again and as a result, the large pressure value was record. Compared to the straightly placed detonating cord, it is shown that 3 times higher peak pressure is available in the spiral detonation cord. The results demonstrate that in a small range the pressure of underwater shock wave is indeed converged and higher pressure value is obtained.