Detonation gases and residues of composite explosives

Our previous work dealing with analyzing the reaction products of insensitive cast high explosives containing TNT, nitroguanidine (NIGU), ammonium nitrate (AN) and Aluminium (Al) has shown that Al reacted incompletely, especially in the case of high concentration of this metal. In this paper, the influences of ambient gas or vacuum condition, of glass confinement and of the grain size of spherical nitroguanidine on the product formation was investigated. Also the initiation behavior was analysed. It was found that composition of the detonation gases is strongly dependent on the grain size of spherical nitroguanidine. Parameters responsible for the amount of unreacted Al are not only the oxygen balance but also the energy content of the high explosives.