Sensitivity and Surface Potential Imbalance

Energetic molecules generally have several strong electron attractors, such as nitro groups and aza nitrogens, that are competing for the polarizable 

Measured impact sensitivities and computed molecular surface quantities for some energetic molecules.a  

Our analysis led eventually to the conclusion that impact sensitivity can be related to this characteristic imbalance between the larger Vs+ and the smaller Vs [89]. There are of course a variety of possible measures of such imbalance, including the quantity v, defined by eq. (6), which we have used 

There is a unifying element in these equations, in that they all focus upon the relative magnitudes of Vs+ and Vs— or s+ and a . The additional dependence upon Vs,max in eq. (7) may be due to the symmetrical trinitrobenzene framework that is common to all 13 nitroaromatics. In eqs. (8) and (9), the contribution of the first variable term is larger than that of the second by an order of magnitude the latter can be viewed as a correction term. 

We have presented an overview of various attempts to relate the impact and shock sensitivities of energetic materials to their molecular structures. The objectives of such efforts are to better understand the chemical and structural determinants of these sensitivities, and to develop a predictive capability to facilitate the evaluation of new and proposed energetic compounds. 

---