Combustion and detonation of mechanoactivated aluminum–potassium perchlorate mixtures

The properties of mechanoactivated energetic composites based on aluminum and potassium perchlorate with high rates of self-sustaining chemical reactions under conditions of combustion and detonation are examined. The results of experiments on studying the combustion, deflagration-to-detonation transition, and sensitivity to friction of these composites are reported. The activation duration and aluminum content in the mixture are varied. The experiments on the deflagration-to-detonation transition of mechanoactivated composites are supplemented by the results of numerical simulations. The calculations and experiments on the dynamics of development of a blast wave and on the steady detonation velocity are found to be in qualitative agreement. It is shown that the velocity of the observed process is significantly (by about 40%) lower than the normal detonation velocity obtained from thermodynamic calculations.