The Explosive Destruction System (EDS) is a transportable system used by the Army to destroy recovered, explosively configured, chemical munitions. The system uses shaped charges to detonate the burster explosives and to cut the munition and access the agent, all inside of a sealed, stainless-steel, containment vessel. Sandia has built four EDS systems. The largest system, with an internal volume of about 620 liters, was designed to handle munitions as large as 8-inch artillery shells. This paper presents an overview of the system with emphasis on the response of the cylindrical vessel to internal detonations. The vessel response was determined through a combination of full-scale testing, sub-scale testing, and computer simulation. Tests with both bare charges and munitions have been conducted in seven vessels ranging in diameter from 19 to 91 centimeters. The paper discusses dynamic strain measurements on the vessel wall and scaling relationships associated with different sized vessels and different quantities of explosives.

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