Thermal history sensing inside high-explosive environments using thermoluminescent microparticles

Thermoluminescent LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) microparticle sensors are demonstrated to record the thermal history of the region near a detonated high explosive. Microparticles were gamma-irradiated to fill their charge-carrier traps and then exposed to the detonation of 20 g of a plastic bonded explosive formulation containing HMX and Al particles at a test distance of approximately 22 cm from the center of the detonation. The thermal history was reconstructed by measuring the thermoluminescent signature of the traps and matching it to appropriate models. The trap populations derived from luminescence measurements and modeling indicate that the particles experienced a maximum temperature of 240 °C, then cooled to 1 °C above ambient temperature within 0.4 seconds. The resulting glow curve intensity is calculated to match the observed post-detonation signal to 3% averaged over the comparison values used for reconstruction.