Explosive fragmentation of thin ceramic tube using pulsed power

TL;DR

This paper investigates the explosive fragmentation of thin ceramic tubes using pulsed power, analyzing fragment mass distributions and establishing universal scaling laws applicable to impact and explosive fragmentation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup for explosive fragmentation using pulsed power and identifies universal scaling laws for fragment mass distributions.

Findings

Fragment mass distribution follows double exponential or power-law with exponential decay.

Weighted mean fragment mass scales with multiplicity.

Universal scaling laws apply to both impact and explosive fragmentation.

Abstract

This study experimentally examined the explosive fragmentation of thin ceramic tubes using pulsed power. A thin ceramic tube was threaded on a thin copper wire, and high voltage was applied to the wire using a pulsed power generator. This melted the wire and the resulting vapor put pressure on the ceramic tube, causing it to fragment. We examined the statistical properties of the fragment mass distribution. The cumulative fragment mass distribution obeyed the double exponential or power-law with exponential decay. Both distributions agreed well with the experimental data. We also found that the weighted mean fragment mass was scaled by the multiplicity. This result was similar to impact fragmentation, except for the crossover point. Finally, we obtained universal scaling for fragmentation, which is applicable to both impact and explosive fragmentation.