Abstract In order to meet the high demands of modern energetic materials, numerous routes have been explored by the researchers. In this study, a ring replacement strategy was designed to enhance the energetic properties. The ring replacement compounds 11 (N,N′-methylenebis (N-(4-(2H-tetrazol-5-yl)-1,2,5-oxadiazol-3-yl)- nitramide) and 15 (N,N′-ethylenebis (N-(4-(2H-tetrazol-5-yl)-1,2,5-oxadiazol-3-yl)- nitramide), in which the oxadiazole rings connected to the furazan backbone were replaced by tetrazole rings were characterized by x-ray single crystal diffraction and NMR (1H, 13C, 15N). The results compounds show that the heats of formation and detonation performance of the replacement compounds were significantly better than those of the precursor compounds, and the nitrogen content of compounds 11 and 15 were improved from 41.18% and 39.81% to54.9% and 53.08%, respectively, which belongs to the category of high nitrogen compounds. In a word, the ring replacement strategy in this work offers fresh routes for the improvement in properties of energetic materials.