Explosive properties smokeless powder

Figure 56. C. G. Storm. Author of numerous articles and government publications on the properties, testing, and analysis of smokeless powder and high explosives. Explosives Chemist at Navy Powder Works, 1901-1909, at U. S. Bureau of Mines, 1909-1915 Directing Chemist, Aetna Explosives Company, 1915-1917 Major and Lieutenant-Colonel, Ordnance Department, 1917-1919 Research Chemist, Trojan Powder Company, 1919 Chief Explosives Chemical Engineer, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, War Department, 1919-1942 since early in 1942, Technical Director, National Fireworks, Inc.

Slurry explosives consist of oxidizers (NH4N03 and NaN03), fuels (coals, oils, aluminum, other carbonaceous materials), sensitizers (trinitrotoluene, nitrostarch, and smokeless powder), and water mixed with a gelling agent to form a thick, viscous explosive with excellent water-resistant properties. Slurry explosives may be manufactured as cartridged units, or mixed on site. 

Smokeless powder has properties similar to nitrocellulose and celluloid and has produced many accidents by spontaneous ignition, although many have not been disclosed because of requirements of military secrecy. Many explosions of magazines in warships in particular have occurred because of the spontaneous ignition of smokeless powder. However, in the famous novel "Mutsu Sank by Explosion" written by Akira Yoshimura, a documentary novelist, most warship explosions were mentioned as having been fictitious accidents. 

Composed of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur. Had been for 550 years the only military explosive available as a propellant now replaced by smokeless powder. For properties and present military and industrial uses, see Black Powder (With Potassium Nitrate), Blasting Powder A. 

Op of these with 100 parts of mixed nitric-sulfuric acid at about 7°(45°F). The resulting products had nitrogen contents about 18.3%, as compared with 18.67% theoretical. They are explosives with properties resembling those of inactive inositol hexanitrate. (The dextro- product is a solid, while the levo- product is a liquid). They are better gelatinizers than NG or NC and have been recommended as ingredients of double-base smokeless powder. They can also be used in dynamites or other commercial explosive mixtures in combination with NG or aromatic nitrocompounds. Crater has also claimed the use of 1H in non-headache dynamites (Ref 5)... 

The preceding discussion of the industrial products obtained from cellulose while not complete nor in technical detail emphasizes the striking fact that cellulose, a widely distributed natural substance, complex in its constitution and inactive in its properties, may, by either mechanical treatment or chemical reaction, be converted into such important products as thread, string and rope wearing apparel (cotton and linen). Mercerized cotton, artificial silk collodion, celluloid, smokeless powders and high explosives. 

Picrate Explosives.—A most important property of the salts of picric acid, especially ammonimn picrate, is their explosive character. They are used in the manufacture of certain smokeless powders, e.g. melinite and liddite. Picric acid itself is not explosive but the salts are exploded either by percussion or ignition. Picric acid is used as an antiseptic and alleviator in the case of burns. It precipitates organic bases and proteins and is used in this way as a test for proteins. 

Properties of smokeless powder Physical properties Explosive properties Products of decomposition... 

Mercury in Abel heat test, 77 in mercury fulminate, estimation of, 60 in smokeless powders, estimatioin of, 54 Mercury fulminate, analysis of mixtures containing, 15a explosive properties of, 153 mixture fur )ercu5sioa caps,... 

Dynamite explosions also injured 13 people at Keystone, West Virgina, and 9 at Lancaster, New York. An explosion of up to a ton of smokeless powder, along with some black powder that was stored in the basement of a sporting goods store in Richmond, Indiana killed 41 persons, injured another 100, and caused over 2 million in property damage. Eleven buildings were destroyed by the explosion and four more from the resulting fires. 

Cellulose nitrate is another useful cellulose derivative. Like glycerol, cellulose can be converted with nitric acid to a nitrate ester (compare eq. 7.41). The number of hydroxyl groups nitrated per glucose unit determines the properties of the product. Guncotton, a highly nitrated cellulose, is an efficient explosive used in smokeless powders. 

High explosives may be class d according to their physical properties as powdery, meltable, semi-meltable and plastic. Propellants may be grouped on the basis of chemical composition into gun powder and similar mixtures, nitrocellulose (single base) and nitroglycerine (double base) powders, With respect to their uses and some properties they are divided into black powder, smokeless and flashless powders, and rocket propellants. 

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