Energetic materials: crystallization, characterization and insensitive plastic bonded explosives
article
The product quality of energetic materials is predominantly determined by the crystallization process applied to produce these materials. It has been demonstrated in the past that the higher the product quality of the solid energetic ingredients, the less sensitive a plastic bonded explosive containing these energetic materials becomes. The application of submicron or nanometric energetic materials is generally considered to further decrease the sensitiveness of explosives. In order to assess the product quality of energetic materials, a range of analytical techniques is available. Recent attempts within the Reduced-sensitivity RDX Round Robin (R4) have provided the EM community a better insight into these analytical techniques and in some cases a correlation between product quality and shock initiation of plastic bonded explosives containing (RS-)RDX was identified, which would provide a possibility to discriminate between conventional and reduced sensitivity grades. In this paper experimental results of two relatively new crystallization techniques are shown. Submicron and nanometric RDX particles have been produced and characterized. Also results on the characterization of different commercial RDX grades will be shown, including data related to a part of the samples received within the R4 programme. Finally, experimental data will be presented and discussed on insensitive plastic bonded explosives (PBXs). © 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
Topics
TNO Identifier
240614
ISSN
07213115
Source
Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics, 33(1), pp. 25-32.
Pages
25-32
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