Pressure-Shear Plate Impact (PSPI) experiments have been conducted to provide an experimental foundation for developing constitutive models for the mechanical response of polymer-bonded sugar (PBS) simulants of polymer-bonded energetic materials (PBXs). Experiments have been conducted on HTPB, sucrose, and a HTPB/sucrose composite at a range of normal stresses (3-9 GPa) and shear strain rates of 10^5 -10^6/s. It is shown that the shear strength of HTPB is highly normal stress sensitive, increasing from 120 MPa at 2.8 GPa to 470 MPa at 8.8 GPa. Sucrose, on the other hand, exhibits a nominally constant value of peak shear strength (~300-400 MPa) in this range of normal stresses and shear strain rates. However, pronounced strain softening is observed in sucrose at high shear strains - even a dramatic drop in shearing resistance in some cases. Based on the experimental data, constitutive models have been developed for sucrose and HTPB. Finite element simulations are carried out for a quasi-linear viscoelastic model for HTPB and an elastic-thermoviscoplastic model for sucrose with a complete equation of state. PSPI experiments on the composite reveal the important role of the binder in determining its shearing resistance, whereby it is observed that even a small amount of binder can result in a drastic drop in peak shear strength of the composite in comparison with the no binder case. Moreover, a drop in shear strength after the peak is still observed in the composite akin to sucrose shear behavior.  Failure mechanisms in the composite are explored using finite element simulations for canonical composite microstructures. 

Dynamic Shearing Resistance of an Energetic Material Simulant: Experiments and Modeling

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