Study of ultrasonic exposure effect on retaining ability of diesel fuel in ammonium nitrate

Abstract

The economic situation in Ukraine depends to a large extent on the mining and metallurgical complex, and therefore the introduction of safe and effective explosives for mining of minerals through the abandonment of TNT and the use of granular BM, namely ammonium nitrate (AN), became relevant. The main advantage of explosives (BM) on the basis of AN is their low cost, also, they do not contain individual BM and are characterized by high energy explosion. 4–6 % of liquid fuel (diesel fuel, industrial oil) is added to the granular ammonium nitrate with agricultural purpose, after mixing a small part of the fuel remains on the surface of the granules and is not actually absorbed. Such a mixture is called igdanites. The main disadvantage of igdanites is the gradual drainage from the surface of granules of liquid fuel. Some time after the mixing of diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate, the content of the liquid component is reduced by 30–70 %, as the fuel flows into the lower part of the well (hole), which may lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the explosion or to a complete absence of detonation.The main objective of this study is to improve the retaining capacity of ammonium nitrate relative to liquid fuels. With this aim, the dependence of the retaining ability on the time of processing by ultrasound for dense and porous ammonium nitrate has been experimentally obtained. As a result of the study, it was found that time increasing of ultrasound exposure to ammonium nitrate increases its retaining ability. This is due to the fact that part of the granules collapses and increases the active area that holds diesel fuel. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time the effect of ultrasound radiation on the retaining capacity of ammonium nitrate relative to diesel fuel was investigated. This explosive substance, after ultrasound treatment, will have an even distribution of the liquid phase throughout the charge, and, consequently, stable explosive characteristics.For the first time, the dependence of the retaining capacity of ammonium nitrate after ultrasound treatment was determined and it was defined that for dense ammonium nitrate after 2, 4, 6 minutes of ultrasonic processing, the retaining ability increased by 28.8 %, 83.1 %, 62 % respectively, and for porous ammonia nitrate – 22.62 %, 45.5 %, 34.6 %. The greatest value of retaining ability is achieved after 4 minutes of ultrasound treatment.