Development of Reactive Flow Models for Energetic Materials

In order to make the process of material model development more systematic for energetic materials, we have developed a procedure that makes use of nonlinear optimization to derive optimal values of parameters in the material models. A framework has been developed that makes use of the optimization software package DAKOTA driving the hydrocode CTH (both CTH and DAKOTA are developed and maintained at Sandia National Laboratories). CTH was used to model a set of characterization experiments that were used as the basis for the calibration of a particular model; for example, the cylinder test was used to calibrate the JWL equation of state, and the wedge test for the HVRB reactive burn model. As a verification test of the framework, we have determined material model constants for TNT and compared them to values published in the literature.