Investigation of the effect of ammonium nitrate fragmentation on the development of ammonal detonation

Despite many years devoted to the study of the mixture of ammonium nitrate and aluminium, the composition is still very popular among others because of manufacture simplicity. Ammonals belong to nonideal explosives whose experimental results deviate from the theoretical ones. This thesis discusses the impact of fragmentation of the main component – ammonium nitrate – on the investigated detonation parameter. With a constant amount of aluminium dust, a series of detonation velocity measurements were carried out. The thesis was based on a continuous method using short-circuit sensors placed in the middle of the load. The methodology for determining the detonation velocity from the obtained voltage-time relationships was developed. Discussions of the obtained measurement results were carried out. Conclusions resulting from research on the development of the detonation process were formulated.