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Cookoff

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Shock Wave Science and Technology Reference Library, Vol. 5

Part of the book series: Shock Wave Science and Technology Reference Library ((SHOCKWAVES,volume 5))

Abstract

The term “cookoff” is a relatively inelegant descriptor of a very complicated series of events. However, it has entered the vernacular, and when it is used, it connotes a process that would be difficult to describe with another single term. The process begins with a thermal source that raises the temperature above ambient, where presumably the kinetic processes leading to decomposition of the energetic material are, for all intents and purposes, zero. The thermal source can be self-produced, as in the center of a well-insulated, large volume of energetic material, or it can arise from an external event such as a fire. The heating can be rapid or very slow, or anything in between. The energetic material can be homogeneous, or it may have been damaged, either through thermal expansion and chemical processes or mechanically. As a result, the gases produced by the increased chemical reaction may either be confined to the immediate vicinity or allowed to permeate throughout a larger volume. The gases carry both thermal and chemical energy and thus the outcome of the heating event can be significantly affected, or, as we show later, even completely determined by their mobility.

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  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545

    Blaine W. Asay

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    B. W. Asay

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Asay, B.W. (2010). Cookoff. In: Asay, B.W. (eds) Shock Wave Science and Technology Reference Library, Vol. 5. Shock Wave Science and Technology Reference Library, vol 5. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-87953-4_7

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