Activation and reaction mechanism of nano‐aluminized explosives under shock wave

Abstract To investigate the effect of aluminum (Al) nanoparticles on the energy release mechanism of high explosives, a comprehensive analysis was conducted on the mechanical response and chemical reaction mechanism of pure 1,3,5‐Trinitro‐1,3,5‐triazinane (RDX) and nano‐aluminized RDX across varying particle velocities using molecular dynamics simulation. The simulation results show that the velocity of the shock wave which is formed in the explosive increases as the velocity of the particle increases. Notably, detonation was absent when the particle velocity was below 3 km/s, but prominently observed beyond this threshold, accompanied by a diminishing delay in reaction time for aluminum particles as particle velocity increased. After detonation, a localized pressure reduction behind aluminum particles was observed, elucidating the diminished detonation efficacy of aluminized explosives. Furthermore, the introduction of aluminum particles led to a deceleration in the RDX reaction rate, with the emergence of aluminum atomic clusters highlighting previously overlooked gas‐phase reactions that necessitate inclusion in detonation modeling for aluminized explosives.