Explosive wave field characteristics of liquid oxygen explosive and nickel hydrazine nitrate

Liquid oxygen blasting technology is an environment-friendly and efficient non-blasting technology. However, scholars have not yet studied the changes in the explosion wave field of liquid oxygen-absorbent. To explore the difference between the explosion caused by a liquid oxygen cartridge and other explosives and to study the characteristics of the liquid oxygen cartridge explosion wave field under different absorbent types, the high-speed schlieren method and air overpressure test system were used to carry out high-speed schlieren experiments in the current work. By comparing experimental results of the explosion of nickel hydrazine nitrate (abbreviated as NHN) that released the same energy, it was found that the reaction time of the liquid oxygen cartridge is more than 20 times that of the NHN explosion, resulting in more detonation gas over a longer duration. Based on the analysis of pressure data, optical flow algorithm calculation speed, and image processing tools, it was found that the better the combustion performance of the absorbent and the larger the contact area with liquid oxygen, the better the explosion effect. The reaction time of the absorbent with a fluffy fibrous form structure was about 1 ms, whereas the maximum pressure generated can reach the value of 5.296 55 kPa. Meanwhile, the explosion's shock wave and the production of the explosion expanded faster. The present study fills the gap in the comparison between explosions from liquid oxygen explosive and explosions from other explosives, providing a certain reference value for improving the understanding of the mechanism of combustion and explosion of combustibles in a liquid oxygen environment.