Gun Propellant Behavior Mastering During Handling and Manufacturing

Abstract

According to UN recommendations or national regulations, gun propellants may be classified in 1.3 or 1.1 hazard division. Handling and manufacturing small caliber gun propellants were identified to lead to mass explosion in different countries. Nevertheless, it was possible to guarantee a 1.3 classification for small caliber gun propellant in container when restricting the loading height. Our recent full scale works have confirmed that even large caliber gun propellants are able to give also explosion mass or pneumatic explosion hazard depending on the confinement (self confinement or container confinement). The methodology used by SNPE to guarantee a 1.3 classification for all kinds of gun propellants is presented in this paper. This methodology is first based on correlation between laboratory tests and small scale tests. It is secondly reinforced by TDD simulations. According to UN recommendations, gun propellants may be classified 1.3 or 1.1. In fact, 1.1 hazard classification for hunting powders and small caliber gun propellants is well known and identified. But also when gun propellants are contained in metallic container, pneumatic explosion must be evaluated. Practically, everybody knows that projection hazard and explosion mass hazard are mastered in restricting the loading height of gun propellants in a given container.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1998
Accession Number
ADA500517

Entities

People

  • Jacques Brunet

Organizations

  • United States Department of Defense

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter IED

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Classification
  • Coefficients
  • Combustion
  • Containers
  • Energetic Materials
  • Explosions
  • Explosives
  • Geometry
  • Guarantees
  • Gun Propellants
  • Hot Wire
  • Information Operations
  • Laboratory Tests
  • Manufacturing
  • Materials
  • Propellants

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Rocket Propulsion.
  • Systems Analysis and Design
  • ballistics.