Particle explosives

Close, Frank Marten, Michael and Sutton, Christine. The Particle Explosion. Oxford University Press, New York. 1987. 

F. Close, M. Marten, C. Sutton, The Particle Explosion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987 R. L. Hahn, The Physics and (Radio) chemistry of Solar Neutrino Experiments, Radiochim. Acta 70/7/, 177 (1995)... 

From the Hydrodynamic Hot Spot Model, one can postulate that the coarse particle explosives have fewer holes or voids per unit volume than the fine-particle explosives, resulting in fewer but larger hot spots. As the explosive particles become finer, the number of hot spots formed by a shock wave increases while the hot spot size decreases. 

The second indication is a faint smoke-like cloudiness in the zone of the tube which is being heated by the Bunsen this is readily visible as the interior of the tube is normally quite clear and bright. This is a later stage of development of the flash-back than the rise of pressure, already mentioned, and should be counteracted by moving the Bunsen immediately to the point of the combustion tube where heating was commenced. In either case the Bunsen should then be moved slowly forwards as before. A flash-back is attended by the deposition of carbon particles, carried back by the explosion wave, on the cold walls of the tube. Care should be taken that these are completely burnt off as the Bunsen is slowly moved forward again. 

A wide variety of special-purpose incinerators (qv) with accompanying gas scmbbers and soHd particle collectors have been developed and installed in various demilitarisation faciUties. These include flashing furnaces that remove all vestiges of explosive from metal parts to assure safety in handling deactivation furnaces, to render safe small arms and nonlethal chemical munitions fluidized-bed incinerators that bum slurries of ground up propellants or explosives in oil and rotary kilns to destroy explosive and contaminated waste and bulk explosive. 

Restraining a gaseous plasma from expanding and compressing is also a form of plasma modification. Two reasons for plasma confinement are maintenance of the plasma and exclusion of contaminants. Plasmas may be confined by surrounding material, eg, the technique of wall confinement (23). A second approach to confinement involves the use of magnetic fields. The third class of confinement schemes depends on the inertial tendency of ions and associated electrons to restrain a plasma explosion for a brief but usehil length of time, ie, forces active over finite times are required to produce outward particle velocities. This inertial confinement is usually, but not necessarily, preceded by inward plasma motion and compression. 

Graining, flaking, and spraying have all been used to make soHd ammonium nitrate particles. Most plants have adopted various prilling or granulation processes. Crystallized ammonium nitrate has been produced occasionally in small quantities for use in specialty explosives. The Tennessee Valley Authority developed and operated a vacuum crystallization process (25), but the comparatively small crystals were not well received as a fertilizer. 

Sealant Manufacturing. Most sealants use mineral-based fillers which may contain small amounts of crystalline siHca. If crystalline siHca is present, dust control is important to prevent inhalation of these particles. Crystalline siHca is a known cause of siHcosis, a debiHtating disease of the lung. Another common safety concern in sealant manufacturing is the use of flammable materials. Not all sealants use flammable ingredients, but for those that do, proper inerting and grounding are needed to prevent potential explosions. 

Gas AntisolventRecrystallizations. A limitation to the RESS process can be the low solubihty in the supercritical fluid. This is especially evident in polymer—supercritical fluid systems. In a novel process, sometimes termed gas antisolvent (GAS), a compressed fluid such as CO2 can be rapidly added to a solution of a crystalline soHd dissolved in an organic solvent (114). Carbon dioxide and most organic solvents exhibit full miscibility, whereas in this case the soHd solutes had limited solubihty in CO2. Thus, CO2 acts as an antisolvent to precipitate soHd crystals. Using C02 s adjustable solvent strength, the particle size and size distribution of final crystals may be finely controlled. Examples of GAS studies include the formation of monodisperse particles (<1 fiva) of a difficult-to-comminute explosive (114) recrystallization of -carotene and acetaminophen (86) salt nucleation and growth in supercritical water (115) and a study of the molecular thermodynamics of the GAS crystallization process (21). 

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