Sheet explosives are materials formed by combining an

explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

with a "rubberizer"—a flexible binding agent. The resulting compound is cast into a flat sheet which is typically pliable and deformable over a wide range of temperature. Typical products are generally shock-insensitive

secondary explosives An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

, requiring a blasting cap or other

detonator A detonator, frequently a blasting cap, is a device used to trigger an explosive device. Detonators can be chemically, mechanically, or electrically initiated, the last two being the most common. The commercial use of explosives uses electri ...

. Detonation velocities are frequently very high, which can improve the detonation synchronicity across the area of a tertiary charge with a low detonation velocity. This property makes them suitable for use in detonation trains which require precise timing and homogeneous delivery of force across a complex surface (but see also

shaped charge A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to form an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Different types of shaped charges are used for various purposes such as cutting and forming metal, init ...

for an orthogonal technique).

Applications: As a main charge

Magnetic flux compression generator

In an explosively-pumped magnetic flux compression generator, explosives are used to accelerate the plates of a large capacitor at each other, while the capacitor has a charge. The result is a colossal spike in amperage that can be used, in a typical application, to fire a railgun for kinetic effects or a transient electromagnetic munition for

electronic warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponen ...

applications. For maximum amperage, the plates must remain parallel as they accelerate towards each other; high detonation velocity is required. In typical designs, however, the capacitor is not made from two flat plates, but from two concentric cylinders. Therefore, sheet explosives simplify construction. The reference cited for this section demonstrates a railgun design using

Detasheet Detasheet is a flexible rubberized explosive, somewhat similar to plastic explosives, originally manufactured by DuPont. Its ingredients are PETN with nitrocellulose and a binder. Properties It was manufactured in thin flexible sheets with a ...

C as the sheet explosive. *

Explosive welding Explosion welding (EXW) is a solid state (solid-phase) process where welding is accomplished by accelerating one of the components at extremely high velocity through the use of chemical explosives. This process is often used to clad carbon stee ...

Explosive forming Explosive forming is a metalworking technique in which an explosive charge is used instead of a punch or press. It can be used on materials for which a press setup would be prohibitively large or require an unreasonably high pressure, and is gene ...

Rocketry

Rocket engines have been created out of a large number of sequentially fired "stages" of sheet explosive discs. (This approach is a rough conventional-explosive analogue to the Project Orion nuclear rocket, although with many more explosions per second.) Note that this differs from a pulsed detonation rocket because the fuel consists solely of pre-positioned solid explosives. The primary advantages of the technique are reliability, stable long-term storage, and the complete absence of any moving parts or pumps for fuel delivery—the design is merely a set of alternating disks of explosives and delayed primers.

Applications: As a boosting charge

Example materials

(legacy; used in 1980s MFCG/railgun experiments, among others) *

Primasheet Primasheet is a rubberized sheet explosive identical to Detasheet. Manufactured by Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense Company Primasheet comes in two varieties: Primasheet 1000 is PETN based and Primasheet 2000 is RDX based. Both are waterproof ...

(in service as of 2013)

References

{{Reflist Explosives