The simplest method for calculating energy output and Gurney velocity of explosives

Two correlations are introduced for calculating Gurney velocity as a useful parameter for thermochemical estimation of explosive energy output. For CaHbNcOd explosives, only the chemical composition of high explosive as well as its condensed or estimated gas phase heat of formation, which later is calculated by group additivity rules, is needed for calculating Gurney velocity. The introduced simple correlations in the present work may be applied to any explosive that contains the elements of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen with no difficulties at any loading density. There is no need to use any assumed decomposition reaction in present work. Gurney velocity are calculated for different pure and explosive formulations and compared with measured Gurney velocity at specified loading density. The results show that the agreement is good for present method as compared to previous correlations.