Chapter 7 Blast Wave Experiments of High Explosives Isabelle Sochet Applications of pyrotechnic materials cover an extensive area: protection of the life and security of the population, satellites, tactical and ballistic missiles, space launchers, aeronautics industry, automotive security (airbags), rail signal devices, perforation charges for petroleum industries, demolition in mines, quarries, build- ings, etc. and a large variety of bombs for terrorist attacks. There is a large variety of high explosives which exist on various forms. The use of trinitrotoluene (TNT) as a reference explosive in properties of blast is universal. Hence, it is very important for experiments to have an absolutely reproducible reference. The difficulty is in the use of small charges. The initiator system and the booster occupy a nonnegligible mass. Hence, the expansion of detonation products and the driving mechanism for the blast wave may be affected. The literature of blast properties is well documented (see References) and the analysis conducted here is focused on small charges of TNT, C4 and composition B from experiments realised by the French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis (ISL) and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA, Gramat). The properties of blast wave are analysed in terms of overpressure, arrival time, impulse, duration and compared with the abacus of UFC-3-340-2 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 2008). Fitted laws are given to calculate the overpressure and arrival time versus scaled distance expressed in terms of mass. The reverse laws are equally established. I. Sochet () Laboratoire PRISME, INSA Centre Val de Loire, Bourges, France e-mail: isabelle.sochet@insa-cvl.fr © Springer International Publishing AG 2018 I. Sochet (ed.), Blast Effects, Shock Wave and High Pressure Phenomena, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70831-7_7 113