Vickers Microhardness as a Viable Mechanical Property Measurement Technique for High Explosive Materials

There are multiple drivers for the development of reliable mechanical property techniques for high explosive (HE) materials, particularly smaller HE samples. While Vickers microhardness is a commonly used technique for mechanical characterization in metals and other materials, there has been little work using this technique for HE materials, particularly plastic bonded explosives (PBX's). A summary of the HE‐related literature employing microhardness, and also more recent literature on nanoindentation, will be presented. Microhardness values were obtained for a variety of HE's and the technique has the resolution to be able to differentiate between different HE's, and even different lots, of a given HE. Results show that the microhardness can scale with compression peak stress (failure stress) and that the technique has the potential to be a proxy for measuring compressive strength. Results also show that the microhardness technique can measure changes due to aging and detect differences in sample density.