Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Different Detonators in Terms of the Initiation Stimulus

In both military and civilian contexts, the use of blasting caps to initiate explosive charges has proven to be a safe and reliable method. Detonators are commercially available in a variety of configurations, with the design space including specifications such as shell material, type and quantity of base and primary charges, and individual adjustment of geometric dimensions. However, the effects of the various configuration parameters on the initiation performance of detonators have not been sufficiently investigated. For this reason, the influence of different detonator configurations on the initiation capability has been numerically investigated in this work. For this purpose, the velocity of the detonator base and shell was measured using Photon Doppler Velocimetry (PDV). Based on the experimental results, simulation models of the different detonators were implemented. These models were used to analyze the influence of the design parameters on the initiation stimulus using the initiation criterion by James.