X-ray-absorption measurements of explosives and the effective atomic number ZEFF

Theoretical and experimental approaches to the absorption behaviour of explosives are described and discussed in relation to characterization and detection. Particularly, characteristic intrinsic absorption data of selected energetic and reference materials were calculated from the International Tables of Crystallography and an X-ray tool has been developed, which allows to determine absorption coefficients and effective atomic numbers experimentally, e. g. for liquid or ""home made"" explosives. The system shall be used in future for a screening and characterization of energetic materials, for instance formulations with unknown elemental compositions, liquid explosive devices, and so called home made explosives, or may help developing calibration sets or explosive dummies.