The role of microstructure in the impact induced temperature rise in hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene (HTPB)–cyclotetramethylene-tetranitramine (HMX) energetic materials using the cohesive finite element method

In this work, microstructure dependent impact-induced failure of hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB)–cyclo-tetra-methylene-tetra-nitramine (HMX) energetic material samples is studied using the cohesive finite element method (CFEM). The CFEM model incorporates experimentally measured viscoplastic constitutive behavior, experimentally measured interface level separation properties, and phenomenological temperature increase due to mechanical impact based on viscoplastic and frictional energy dissipation. Nanoscale dynamic impact experiments were used to obtain parameters for a strain-rate dependent power law viscoplastic constitutive model in the case of bulk HTPB and HMX as well as the HTPB–HMX interfaces. An in situ mechanical Raman spectroscopy (MRS) setup was used to obtain bilinear cohesive zone model parameters to simulate interface separation. During analyses, the impact-induced viscoplastic energy dissipation and the frictional contact dissipation at the failed HTPB–HMX interfaces is found to have a significant contribution toward local temperature rise. Microstructures having circular HMX particles show a higher local temperature rise as compared to those with diamond or irregularly shaped HMX particles with sharp edges indicating that the specific particle surface area has a higher role in temperature rise than particle shape and sharp edges. Regions within the analyzed microstructures near the HTPB–HMX interfaces with a high-volume fraction of HMX particles were found to have the maximum temperature increase.