Mitigation effects on the reflected overpressure of blast shock with water surrounding an explosive in a confined space

Abstract

The mitigation of blast shock with water has broad application prospects. Understanding the mitigation effects on the reflected overpressure of the explosion shock with water surrounding an explosive in a confined space is of great significance for military explosives safety applications. To estimate the effects of the parameters on the reflected overpressure of blasted shock wave, a series of experiments were carried out in confined containers with spherical explosives immersed in a certain thickness of water, and numerical simulations were conducted to explore the corresponding mechanisms. The results reveal that the reflected overpressure is abnormally aggravated at a small scaled distance. This aggravation is due to the high impulse of the bulk accelerated water shell converted from the explosion. With increasing scaled distance, the energy will be gradually dissipated. The mitigation effects will appear with the dispersed water phase front impacting at a larger scaled distance, except in the case of a dense water phase state. A critical scaled distance range of 0.7–0.8 m/kg1/3 for effective mitigation was found. It is suggested that the scaled distance of space walls should be larger than the critical value for a certain water-to-explosive weight ratio range (5–20).

Keywords

• Shock
• Water mitigation
• Scaled distance
• Water-to-explosive weight ratio
• Confined container