Transmission line design for detonating exploding bridge wires

A common way to directly initiate explosives is the use of exploding bridge wire devices. A critical factor for detonating a bridge wire is the energy provided from the firing set. The amount of energy transmitted depends mainly on both the firing system and the shooting line parameters. A design procedure that optimizes the firing set parameters so that proper detonation occurs is developed. Transmission line theory is employed to develop a formulation to determine the bridge wire current and/or the burst current in terms of the firing set parameters. Measurements showed that a coaxial shooting line performs substantially better than a two-wire line. It is shown that the line length is an important factor in the occurrence of misfires.<>