Bulk loading

T. E. Goddard, "The Euture of Bulk Loaded Eluid Propellant Guns," in 3rd International Gun Propellant Symposium, American Defense Preparedness Association, Washington, D.C., Oct. 1984. 

Ammonium sulfate is produced as a caprolactam by-product from the petrochemical industry, as a coke by-product, and synthetically through reaction of ammonia with sulfuric acid. Only the third process is covered in our discussion. The reaction between anunonia and sulfuric acid produces an ammonium sulfate solution that is continuously circulated through an evaporator to thicken the solution and to produce ammonium sulfate crystals. The crystals are separated from the liquor in a centrifuge, and the liquor is returned to the evaporator. The crystals are fed either to a fluidized bed or to a rotary drum dryer and are screened before bagging or bulk loading. 

The following incident involved cylinders rather than bulk loads, but it shows how alertness to an unusual observation can prevent an accident. 

The bulk loading station will be capable of automatically weighing any set amount of material into a truck or hopper car. 

Ammunition containing bulk-loaded mono-proplnts have the characteristics of low flame temp, high energy, reduced smoke and flash, and reduced fouling and longer barrel life. 

In future, continued reduction in blasting costs will be realized thru improved formulations of existing product types and more widespread use of bulk loading techniques. 

The job of a chemical munition is to create a toxic environment over as much of the target as is compatible with the toxicity of its charge. It must convert its bulk load either into an even distribution of liquid or solid particles, or into a cloud of vapour, or into both. It must, additionally, do this in a certain time. These are strict demands, and they are made more severe by the diversity of chemical agents now in stockpiles. Each agent has a combination of physical characteristics and toxic behaviour that is unique but, nevertheless, all munitions work on the same basic principle they cause the transfer of energy from a store, generally an explosive, to the chemical load. The simplest chemicals to disperse are the volatile, non-persistent ones such as phosgene the hardest ones... 

Exposure Levels in Environmental Media. There is a substantial amount of exposure data on air levels of gasoline vapors surrounding service stations and bulk loading terminals, and some data on air levels resulting from excavation and maintenance of underground storage tanks (ATSDR 1989,... 

Fig. 24. Variable-temperature experimental and simulated dynamic MAS NMR (left) and H-solid echo spectra (right) for a bulk loading of two adsorbed benzene molecules per Ag-Y zeolite supercage. The numerical values accompanying the simulated MAS C-NMR spectra are the centers of a 1.9 decade EWHM log-normal rate distribution, which was varied to obtain the simulations. (Reprinted with permission from Ref. 626. Copyright 1999 American Chemical Society.)...

Will the design of bulk loading/unloading facilities contain anticipated leaks and spills ... 

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