Title
Assessment of stability of propellants and safe lifetimes
Author
de Klerk, W.P.C.
Publication year
2015
Abstract
The surveillance of gun propellants is basically performed either by an investigation into the thermal behavior of the propellant or by the determination of its remaining effective stabilizer content. Over the years it is shown that the surveillance of NC based gun propellants is necessary. NC based materials are intrinsically unstable, and can cause many accidents. Some accidents were caused by old unstable material, other ones were initiated by the extreme conditions during storage, like during expeditionary operations of military forces. And in quite a few cases it was a combination of these. Surveillance tests have changed over the years, and the last philosophy is to test the propellants as close as possible in comparison to the way they are stored [1] for this way of testing the Heat Flow Calorimetry (or microcalorimetry) method is the optimum. Older methods like the Abel heat test, Methyl Violet Test, Bergman-Junk stability test, are test methods an analysis of the current status, without or very limited prediction behavior. Besides that the temperatures are relatively high, the measuring value is quite strongly dependent of the observer/operator. In general these tests are applied for propellants and sometimes explosives, although the general application worldwide (as far they are in use by countries) is propellants.
Subject
Observation, Weapon & Protection Systems
EM - Energetic Materials
TS - Technical Sciences
Explosives
Propellants
Stability
Lifetime
Test methods
Stabilizers
Lifetime
Propellant
Stability
Stabilizer
Test methods
Accidents
Calorimeters
Convergence of numerical methods
Explosives
Monitoring
Stabilizers (agents)
Extreme conditions
General applications
Heat flow calorimetry
Surveillance tests
Test method
Thermal behaviors
Unstable materials
Testing
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/prep.201500040
TNO identifier
526465
Publisher
Wiley-VCH Verlag
ISSN
0721-3115
Source
Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics, 40 (3), 388-393
Document type
article