High energy laser heating and ignition study

We present a model for simulating high energy laser heating and ignition of confined energetic materials. The model considers effect of ablation of steel plate with long laser pulses and continuous lasers of several kilowatts and the thermal response of well-characterized high explosives for ignition. Since there is enough time for the thermal wave to propagate into the target and to create a region of hot spot in the high explosives, electron thermal diffusion of ultra-short(femto- and pico-second) lasing is ignored; instead, heat diffusion of absorbed laser energy in the solid target is modeled with thermal decomposition kinetic models of high explosives are used. Numerically simulated pulsed-laser heating of solid target and thermal explosion of cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine(RDX), triaminotrinitrobenzene(TATB), and octahydrotetranitrotetrazine(HMX) are compared to experimental results. The experimental and numerical results are in good agreement.