A study of chemical micromechanism governing detonation initiation of condensed explosive mixtures by means of differential thermal analysis

Thermal reactivities of 11 commercial explosives with different nitric ester contents, oxidizing systems of 10 classical emulsion explosives (water in oil (W/O) type), four of these fortified by 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazacyclohexane (RDX) or pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), and three samples of W/O emulsion explosives were examined by means of differential thermal analysis (DTA) and data were analyzed according to the Kissinger method. The reactivities, expressed as the Ea R−1 slopes of the Kissinger relationship, correlate with the squares of the detonation rates of the corresponding explosive mixtures in the form of the modified Evans–Polanyi–Semenov ( E–P–S) equation. In explosive mixtures, the thermal reactivity of the oxidizing system and/or its mixture with a high explosive replaces the primary thermal reactivity of explosophore groups in the individual energetic materials. Addition of any inorganic nitrate to ammonium nitrate in a classical W/O, emulsion explosive was found to result in a decrease in the detonation parameters of the resulting mixture.