Kinetics of Carbon Condensation in Detonation of High Explosives: First-Order Phase Transition Theory Perspective

TL;DR

This paper models the kinetics of carbon condensation in explosive detonations using a thermodynamically consistent rate equation approach, integrating aggregation and fragmentation, and applies first-order phase transition theory to analyze the process.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive rate equation model that includes both aggregation and fragmentation, with analytical solutions, for understanding carbon condensation kinetics in detonations.

Findings

The model captures the general kinetic trends of carbon condensation.

Analytical expressions facilitate sensitivity analysis of system parameters.

The theory aligns with observed phenomena like nucleation and Ostwald ripening.

Abstract

The kinetics of carbon condensation, or carbon clustering, in detonation of carbon-rich high explosives is modeled by solving a system of rate equations for concentrations of carbon particles. Unlike previous efforts, the rate equations account not only for the aggregation of particles, but also for their fragmentation in a thermodynamically consistent manner. Numerical simulations are performed, yielding the distribution of particle concentrations as a function of time. In addition to that, analytical expressions are obtained for all the distinct steps and regimes of the condensation kinetics, which facilitates the analysis of the numerical results and allows one to study the sensitivity of the kinetic behavior to the variation of system parameters. The latter is important because the numerical values of many parameters are not reliably known at present. The theory of the kinetics of first-order phase transitions is found adequate to describe the general kinetic trends of carbon condensation, as described by the rate equations. Such physical phenomena and processes as the coagulation, nucleation, growth, and Ostwald ripening are observed and their dependence on various system parameters is studied and reported. It is believed that the present work will become useful when analyzing the present and future results for the kinetics of carbon condensation, obtained from experiments or atomistic simulations.