Safer Explosives & Processing

Safer Explosives

An Insensitive Munition (IM) is one that will not react violently in an accident or by enemy action, which will subject it to unplanned stimuli, such as heat, shock, and fragment or bullet impact. The global development of IM was initiated after a series of catastrophes resulting from accidental detonation of energetics or munitions during operation and storage in the 1980s. All these inadvertent events led to loss of life, combat and defence capabilities; and took millions of dollars to rectify the extensive damages.

ATREC’s formulation chemists have developed a wide range of insensitive energetic formulations which offer the best compromise of high performance and low sensitivity. These adaptable and matured energetic solutions outperformed conventional explosives (e.g. TNT and Comp-B) in insensitivity and lethality.

ATREC’s insensitive explosive formulations have been substance qualified to STANAG 4170 and exhibit excellent mechanical properties, thermal stability, ageing properties, as well as reduced vulnerability to shock and thermal threats.

Processing of explosives using planetary mixer

New Energetic Processes

In recent years, we have started exploring ResonantAcoustic® Mixing (RAM) Technology as an alternative and improved processing method for energetic materials. RAM harnesses the resonance of the mechanical system to generate powerful acoustic energy for the effective and efficient mixing of ingredients. The non-contact RAM processing also offers enhanced safety benefits with regards to the mixing of energetic materials. Our developmental studies involve the processing of energetic materials using LabRAMII H from Resodyn Corporation. The results revealed that energetic formulations produced using RAM technology demonstrated equivalent, if not better, mix quality and performance than those processed using conventional methods. RAM technology excels in rapid development of new advanced energetics, and manufacturing of existing energetics with substantial reduction in mixing time and enhanced product reproducibility while reducing material waste.

Processing of energetic materials using RAM Technology