Elastic Wave Calculations for the Cowboy Program

A comparison of theoretical calculations for elastic-wave radiation from spherical cavities in salt with close-in experimental results from the Cowboy program of underground high-explosive tests. The over-all agreement between experiment and theory appears to be excellent. More detailed comparisons show that the salt does depart from elastic behavior as a result of plasticity at distances close to the cavity for large charge weights and as the result of other losses at small strains that enhance attenuation of the waves at larger distances. The theoretical findings are used to suggest new ways for correlating such quantities as explosive and radiated energies, peak values of particle displacement, velocity, acceleration, and radial stress. The potential usefulness of these new procedures is tested by using them to find a new way of scaling experimental values of the peak particle velocities from all uncoupled shots of the Cowboy tests.