Micro indentation hardness testing of commercial-grade RDX crystals

This paper describes the continuous micro indentation hardness testing of two commercial grades of RDX with differing shock sensitivities using three (3) different loads on a Berkovich indenter to obtain values of elastic modulus, hardness, and the fraction of elastic work. Indentation creep behavior was also investigated. All of this was performed in an effort to relate these mechanical property results to the materials' hot spot characteristics. While the two grades of RDX are known to have significantly different sensitivities, only minimal differences in the current hardness results were obtained.