Proceedings of 39th Joint Propulsion Conference, Huntsville, AL, July 2003.
Barry T. Neyer, Associate Fellow AIAA
Lloyd Cox
Terry Stoutenborough
Robert Tomasoski
PerkinElmer Optoelectronics
Miamisburg, OH 45343-0529
Current Address
Barry T. Neyer
Excelitas Technologies
1100 Vanguard Blvd
Miamisburg, OH 45342
(937) 865-5586
(937) 865-5170 (Fax)
Barry.Neyer@Excelitas.com
HNS-IV (2,2', 4,4', 6,6' – Hexanitrostilbene) is a well characterized energetic material that is used in a variety of aerospace, military, and industrial systems. It is an insensitive explosive, and is thermally stable to temperatures of over 200 C. With many modern systems requiring a system life of 20 years, it is important that the explosive be stable during that lifetime, and that there be a method of verifying the stability of the explosive. This paper will discuss the tests typically used to characterize the explosive. It will discuss the theory behind aging studies as well as aging studies performed on bulk powder and several devices containing HNS-IV explosive. The data will show that there is little performance degradation with explosive powder and detonators that have been subjected to accelerated aging. In addition, data is presented showing that a commonly used performance indicator has almost no effect on device performance.
Technical Papers of Dr. Barry T. Neyer
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