Publications Details

Detonation and initiation behavior in vapor-deposited BTF (benzotrifuroxan)

Tappan, Alexander S.; Marquez, Michael P.; Bassett, William P.; Quinn, Jennifer L.; Knepper, Robert A.

The explosive BTF (benzotrifuroxan) is an interesting molecule for sub-millimeter studies of initiation and detonation. It has no hydrogen, thus no water in the detonation products and a subsequently high temperature in the reaction zone. The material has impact sensitivity that is comparable or less than that of PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) and slightly greater than RDX, HMX, and CL-20. Physical vapor deposition (PVD) can be used to grow high-density films of pure explosives with precise control over geometry, and we apply this technique to BTF to study detonation and initiation behavior as a function of sample thickness. The geometrical effects on detonation and corner turning behavior are studied with the critical detonation thickness experiment and the micromushroom test, respectively. Initiation behavior is studied with the high-throughput initiation experiment. Vapor-deposited films of BTF show detonation failure, corner turning, and initiation consistent with a heterogeneous explosive. Scaling of failure thickness to failure diameter shows that BTF has a very small failure diameter.