Unsupervised Learning-Based Multiscale Model of Thermochemistry in 1,3,5-Trinitro-1,3,5-triazinane (RDX)

MN Sakano and A Hamed and EM Kober and N Grilli and BW Hamilton and MM Islam and M Koslowski and A Strachan, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY A, 124, 9141-9155 (2020).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.0c07320

The response of high-energy-density materials to thermal or mechanical insults involves coupled thermal, mechanical, and chemical processes with disparate temporal and spatial scales that no single model can capture. Therefore, we developed a multiscale model for 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazinane, RDX, where a continuum description is informed by reactive and nonreactive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to describe chemical reactions and thermal transport. Reactive MD simulations under homogeneous isothermal and adiabatic conditions are used to develop a reduced-order chemical kinetics model. Coarse graining is done using unsupervised learning via non-negative matrix factorization. Importantly, the components resulting from the analysis can be interpreted as reactants, intermediates, and products, which allows us to write kinetics equations for their evolution. The kinetics parameters are obtained from isothermal MD simulations over a wide temperature range, 1200-3000 K, and the heat evolved is calibrated from adiabatic simulations. We validate the continuum model against MD simulations by comparing the evolution of a cylindrical hotspot 10 nm in diameter. We find excellent agreement in the time evolution of the hotspot temperature fields both in cases where quenching is observed and at higher temperatures for which the hotspot transitions into a deflagration wave. The validated continuum model is then used to assess the criticality of hotspots involving scales beyond the reach of atomistic simulations that are relevant to detonation initiation.

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