A new qualitative conception of the detonation mechanism in condensed explosives has been developed on the basis of experimental and numerical modelling data. According to the conception the mechanism consists of two stages: non-equilibrium and equilibrium. The mechanism regularities are explosive characteristics and they do not depend on explosive charge structure (particle size, nature of filler in the pores, explosive state, liquid or solid, and so on). The tremendous rate of loading inside the detonation wave shock discontinuity zone (
ca.
10
-13
s) is responsible for the origin of the non-equilibrium stage. For this reason, the kinetic part of the shock compression energy is initially absorbed only by the translational degrees of freedom of the explosive molecules. It involves the appearance of extremely high translational temperatures for the polyatomic molecules. In the course of the translational-vibrational relaxation processes (that is, during the first non-equilibrium stage of
ca.
10
-10
s time duration) the most rapidly excited vibrational degrees of freedom can accumulate surplus energy, and the corresponding bonds decompose faster than behind the front at the equilibrium stage. In addition to this process, the explosive molecules become electronically excited and thermal ionization becomes possible inside the translational temperature overheat zone. The molecules thermal decomposition as well as their electronic excitation and thermal ionization result in some active particles (radicals, ions) being created. The active particles and excited molecules govern the explosive detonation decomposition process behind the shock front during the second equilibrium stage. The activation energy is usually low, so that during this stage the decomposition proceeds extremely rapidly. Therefore the experimentally observed dependence of the detonation decomposition time for condensed explosives is rather weak.
