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Explosives
Published in Per-Anders Persson, Roger Holmberg, Jaimin Lee, Rock Blasting and Explosives Engineering, 2018
Per-Anders Persson, Roger Holmberg, Jaimin Lee
Composition B, a castable mix of RDX with TNT and a small addition of desensitizing beeswax, soon became the most frequently used high-energy military explosive on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, Comp. B. (although gradually being replaced in new ammunition by castable plastic-bonded RDX) is the most common projectile fill in ammunition magazines. Very large quantities of old TNT-filled ammunition are still in store in most countries. Precision-cast Composition B has been widely used for shaped charges.
Sustainable High Explosives Development
Published in Mark J. Mezger, Kay J. Tindle, Michelle Pantoya, Lori J. Groven, Dilhan M. Kalyon, Energetic Materials, 2017
Noah Lieb, Neha Mehta, Karl D. Oyler, Kimberly Yearick Spangler
Black powder (gunpowder)—a mixture of charcoal, potassium nitrate, and sulfur—reigned supreme for most of the history of energetic materials, dating back to at least AD 1000.4 It filled the roles of propellant, pyrotechnic, and explosive (both primary and secondary) depending on its configuration. As an explosive, it generally only functioned well when strongly confined and was not particularly efficient. It was not until about the 1830s that modern high secondary explosive development began when French chemist Henri Braconnot first synthesized nitrostarch from plant starch and nitric acid.5 Later, Alfred Nobel famously invented commercial dynamite by stabilizing the previously hazardous nitroglycerin (NG) by absorbing it into diatomaceous earth. In the late 1800s, picric acid, a meltable high explosive, was used extensively because it was amenable to a new process for melt-pouring the explosive directly into artillery shells.6 Germany began using TNT (2,4,6-trinitrotoluene), arguably the most famous high explosive compound, in the early 1900s; prior to that, TNT’s best use was in the dye industry. The explosive had the same melt-castable ability as picric acid, and World Wars I and II saw the use of vast quantities of it. In the later stages of World War II, 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazacyclohexane (RDX) was gradually incorporated into military explosive formulations. The postwar era saw the nitramine compound, RDX, along with its higher powered relative, 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetraazacyclooctane (HMX), gradually take over as the most abundantly produced military high explosives (Figure 6.1). RDX and HMX are considerably stronger explosives than TNT, although their melting points preclude melt casting. The U.S. military continues to employ TNT but almost never as a neat compound; instead, it is usually found alongside RDX in a common formulation known as Composition B (Comp B), which makes use of the high solubility of RDX in molten TNT to allow for a melt-castable explosive fill. Modern high explosives research focuses on improving the insensitivity of high explosive formulations, either by altering HMX- or RDX-based formulations or through the use of alternative explosive compounds.
The Trinity High-Explosive Implosion System: The Foundation for Precision Explosive Applications
Published in Nuclear Technology, 2021
Eric N. Brown, Dan L. Borovina
Composition B enabled the ability to realize an implosion device. The fast type of explosive in the lenses was Composition B, often referred to as Comp B, a mixture of 59.5 wt% Research Department Explosive (RDX), 39.5 wt% TNT, and 1.0 wt% wax desensitizer. It is one of the family of mixtures of RDX and TNT (molecular structures shown in Fig. 12) known as cyclotols. Composition B has been a common melt-castable HE for a wide range of conventional explosive ordnance, including artillery projectiles, rockets, landmines, hand grenades, and various other munitions. It is worth noting that unlike TNT, which had been around since 1863, RDX was not initially developed until the early days of World War II by Britain’s Woolwich Arsenal.30 It offers about 1.5 times the explosive energy of TNT per unit weight and about 2.0 times per unit volume, so for security reasons, Britain named it “Research Department Explosive,” which continues on as RDX. The British discovered that by adding TNT to a mixture with RDX, the resulting product was more stable during shipping, and they named it Composition B.
Degradation of RDX, TNT, and HMX during EPA 8330B Sample Processing and Analysis of Soils under Hydrated Lime or Dithionite-Based Chemical Remediation
Published in Soil and Sediment Contamination: An International Journal, 2019
Marc-Olivier Turcotte-Savard, Sylvie Brochu
Composition B (Comp B), an energetic formulation made of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazinane (RDX) and minor quantities of 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocane (HMX) (as a synthetic impurity of RDX; Akhavan, 2011), is commonly used in munitions by several military forces around the world. However, TNT, RDX, and HMX tend to accumulate on the soil surface of military ranges and training areas (RTA) and sometimes leach into nearby surface water and groundwater. Therefore, significant research efforts were dedicated in the past 25 years to better understand their dispersion in RTA (Thiboutot et al., 2012b, 2012a) as well as their fate and transport (Lapointe et al., 2017; Lewis et al., 2009; Martel et al., 2009, Taylor et al., 2012) and their ecotoxicity (Sunahara et al., 2009).