A Verification and Validation Study of the Cyclops I PBX 9502 Experiment
Abstract A computational verification and validation study of the Cyclops I experiment [1–7] was conducted using the Los Alamos Eulerian Applications code xRage [8]. The purpose of this study was to validate the Scaled Unified Reactive Front (SURF) plus (SURFplus) model for insensitive high explosives [9–12]. Diagnostics from the experiment included photon doppler velocimetry measurements of the encasing shell for the device and proton radiography photographs of the explosions. This data was compared to the xRage computed data and a convergence study of burn front evolution was conducted. We conclude that the SURFplus high explosive model does an excellent job at predicting the high explosive burn front velocity and shape with results that converge to the experimental data at rates near to or better than first order in most cases. Some companion verification metrics for the solution convergence are also described. These metrics show that the xRage computed solution for the high explosive burn front converges to first order or better, as consistent with the treatment of shock fronts in a higher order Godunov hydrodynamic solver as used in xRage.