Synchotron Studies of Detonator Function

Each year approximately 99% by mass of energetic material use takes place in the quarrying, mining, construction and petrochemical industries. One of the main commercial items used in these areas are detonators. Three principal factors determine the design of commercial detonators: reliability, safety and cost. In this paper we report an initial study using synchrotron radiation to produce high-resolution images of the initial ignition and initiation processes within commercially available detonators.. This images clearly show the timescales of the processes, showing where and how jitter in detonator function occurs. These images were captured at the ESRF, ID19 beamline, using its newly established detonation chamber.