Military additional requirements

This book contains six chapters. While chapter one of this book introduces the subject in terms of salient/fundamental features of explosives, additional requirements for military explosives and their applications (military, commercial, space, nuclear others), chapter 2 highlights the status of current and futuristic explosives in the light of their special characteristics. In addition, the future scope of research in this field has also been brought into focus in this chapter. 

The nature of existing fuels as a complex liquid mixture of hydrocarbons lends itself well to adjustment of properties by choice of fraction, blending, treatment, etc., so that the properties of the fuel can be tailored to meet the demands of particular applications. The fuels are essentially non-polar organic solvents, and readily dissolve a variety of additives. Thus, military fuels can be based on commercial fuels, but with adjusted properties. For example, JP 8 is essentially identical to commercial Jet A-l, but with the addition of a military additive pack to account for the more demanding military requirements. This includes antioxidants to prevent fuel oxidation, metal deactivators to counteract metals, fuel system icing inhibitor to prevent water in fuel from freezing, and a corrosion inhibitor/lubricity enhancer to prevent corrosion and fuel pump failure.1... 

The most widely used turbine lubricants, by far, are the 5 cSt grades covered by US Navy specification MIL-PRF-23699 [11] and UK MoD specification Def Stan 91-101 [12]. The lubricants approved to the Def Stan happen to be a subset of those approved to the MIL specification that have passed the additional requirements for operation in the UK military engines. 

However, after only a few years, these regulations proved to be too inflexible to respond properly to the new problems whieh evolved. The amount of ammunition to be stored and its explosive eontent steadily increased. Military readiness requirements eaUed for additional storage space closer to populated areas. At the same time, a great number of residential, public, and industrial buildings, leisure installations, and roads were buUt eloser and eloser to the existing storage installations. And Anally, the financial funds were limited as always and everywhere. 

As with SMC, appHcations are limited to high volume because of the capital investment in equipment and tooling. Thermoset compression molders require additional heating and material Handling equipment to adapt their process to thermoplastic sheet fabrication. AppHcations include automotive bumper beams, load floors, radiator supports, battery trays, and package shelves. Chair sheUs, military containers, material Handling pallets, trays, and concrete foaming pans are also produced. 

Military explosives are required to meet stringent criteria because apart from a requirement for high performance, the military needs to be able to safely store them for decades, transport them anywhere from the poles to the equator, handle them under battlefield conditions, and still have them fuUy functional. In addition, availability of raw materials, ease of manufacture, and cost are important factors. Most candidate explosive compounds do not meet all these requirements. 

The high stability of TATB favors its use in military and civilian applications where insensitive high explosives are required. In addition to its applications as a HE, TATB is also used to produce the important intermediate benzenehexamine which has been used in the preparation of ferromagnetic organic salts and in the synthesis of new heteropolycyclic molecule such as 1,4,5,8,9,12-hexaazatriphenyl-ene (HAT) that serves as a strong electron acceptor ligand for low-valence transition metals. 

Carbon tetrachloride represents an example of the change to petroleum raw materials in this field. The traditional source of this widely used product has been the chlorination of carbon disulfide, either directly or through the use of sulfur dichloride. Military requirements in World War II caused an increase in demand, and in addition to expansion of the older operations, a new process (28) was introduced in 1943 it involved direct chlorination of methane at 400° to 500° C. and essentially atmospheric pressure. This apparently straight-forward substitution of halogen for hydrogen in the simplest paraffin hydrocarbon was still a difficult technical accomplishment, requiring special reactor construction to avoid explosive conditions. There is also the fact that disposal of by-product hydrochloric acid is necessary here, though this does not enter the carbon disulfide picture. That these problems have been settled successfully is indicated by the report (82) that the chlorination of methane is the predominant process in use in the United States today, and it is estimated that more than 100,000,000 pounds of carbon tetrachloride were so produced last year. 

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