PHYSICAL SCIENCES INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: RDX and HMX are cyclic nitramines widely used as high explosives in military applications.

Description

RDX and HMX are cyclic nitramines widely used as high explosives in military applications. The Army recognizes a continuing need for more powerful high explosives that have improved energy density. To increase the energy of nitramine materials further, a highly promising strategy is to modify the inherent crystalline density of the materials by structural substitution of hydrogen atoms with chlorine atoms. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) proposes to synthesize and characterize novel chlorinated cyclic nitramines with improved energy density. These novel compounds will be synthesized in an innovative one-step process that will be a safe, environmentally benign method and highly amenable to scale-up. PSI will synthesize gram quantities of compounds that will be thoroughly characterized using advanced structural analytical methods. Selected compounds will be supplied for explosive performance testing at Army facilities. Testing will include combustion calorimetry, safety testing, heat of formation, density, detonation velocity measurements and small scale gap testing. On a potential Phase II program, PSI will partner with Nalas Engineering for scale up and Nammo Talley for characterization. They will investigate scale-up paths and provide hundreds of grams of the target for enhanced testing, formulation and characterization.