Effects of polymeric binders on the RDX-based explosive response character under slow cook-off conditions

Abstract

Due to safety requirements, insensitive behaviour under slow thermal heating (cook-off) conditions is a desirable behaviour for today's munitions. In this paper a cook-off device is designed to test two groups of RDX-based PBX explosives. In the first group the binder type was varied and in the second group the binder content of the RDX-based explosive was changed. Eleven samples were examined in order to evaluate the influence of four different binders and seven different binder contents on the shell deformation and the degree of the involved reaction. The test results showed that the degree of the reaction can be improved by changing the binder content, but not by the binder type. This phenomenon was explained by the thermal-conduction theory.