Cover Picture: Nitrate Salt Based Melt Cast Materials (Prop., Explos., Pyrotech. 1/2018)

Abstract

The cover picture shows a drop weight impact test of a melt castable formulation. The molecular structures of some of the ingredients used to develop environmentally friendly melt castable formulations that could serve as alternatives to TNT based melt-cast materials such as Comp B. The formulations are based on heterocycles, such as the heterocyclic compounds such as amino-1,2,4-triazolium nitrates, guandinium 5-amino-tetrazolate. Combinations of these materials with ammonium nitrate lead to melt castable formulations that display excellent safety properties and performance better than TNT. Formulations that included HMX were also prepared and these materials have performance similar to Comp B (PCJ = 28–30 GPa, VD = 8.78–9.0 km/s) and show good safety properties. More details can be found in the Short Communication by P. W. Leonard et al. on page 11 ff.