Study on Electromagnetic Radiation Generated During Detonation

Electromagnetic radiation generated by an explosion significantly interferes with devices used in explosion tests. To study this electromagnetic radiation generated during the explosion of explosives, experiments using different masses of composition B explosives were performed, where coils were used to measure electromagnetic pulses generated by the explosion. The acquired signals were de-noised by a wavelet analysis to extract the real signals. Three typical pulses were identified at different times after detonation, which were locally amplified and investigated in detail to differentiate their origins. Based on this analysis, a numerical simulation of the entire explosion process was performed. The EXPLOSION-3D hydrocode was used to simulate the experimental cases, and the propagation of the air shock wave over time was modelled. Comparing the experimental and calculated results, we made the following observations. First, an electromagnetic pulse was directly generated by the high-temperature plasma produced by detonation of the composition B explosive; second, an electromagnetic pulse was generated by charged particles, which were in turn generated by the unbalanced and incompletely ionized plasma formed by the shock wave reflected from the ground meeting the front shock wave; and third, an pulse was caused by the shock wave impacting the measuring coils and was considered an experimental artefact and not a result of the explosion.