Ageing study on the polymer bonded explosive KS-32; one part of the research from a 3-nation’s cooperation

In 2006 the technical agreement ‘Ageing Properties of Polymer Bonded Explosives (PBX)’ was formed between the Germany (WIWEB and ICT), The Netherlands (TNO) and the United Kingdom (AWE and QinetiQ). In this agreement the PBX KS-32 was investigated to obtain a better understanding of the relationship between the ageing by temperature and the physical and chemical changes that affect the hazard properties of the composition, and look at the changes of mechanical properties. To obtain all the necessary information, various techniques have been used for analyzing the aged and un-aged materials. For investigation of the ageing effects on the mechanical properties, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) was used and for the chemical properties attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR). The physical properties of the un-aged and aged materials were obtained from the friction apparatus, for impact the BAM Fallhammer system and friability tests to obtain information about the insensitive munitions (IM) properties. Information about the kinetics, degradation gasses and glass-transition temperature point was determined with thermogravimetric analysis, combined with mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy as detection of the degradation gasses. The glass-transition temperatures for the samples were also obtained from DSC as well as with DMA. From the results the material is expected to be stable for ageing by storage at 25ºC for at least 20 years