Introduction to Explosive Materials

Much of my work over the years involved testing and developing explosive systems. What I hope to do with this series of posts is to describe in a succinct form some of the background, both theoretical and experimental, that went into my work. This series of posts is an overview of explosive materials and their uses. It's similar to some texts available but I will be including links and various downloadable items that some readers might find useful.

There are three basic types of explosive materials: primaries like azides and fulminates; secondaries such as HMX, RDX, and TNT; commercial, which include variants of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil used in the mining industry.

Though most uses of explosives is associated with the military in many people's minds the largest use of explosives is in the mining industry. Other uses include shaped charges for oil and gas well perforation, explosive systems for demolition, and also creatively for works of art. In the mid 1980's two artists, Evelyn Rosenberg and Alice Seeley, experimented with explosives to develop three dimensional sculpted frieze type works in metal plates. Some of their work is quite evocative.

Marcellin Bertholet, a French chemist, studied the early uses of military explosives during the siege of Paris in 1871 and developed the science of explosives. His primary insight was that explosives operated according to the same mechanics as other systems that might be found in nature. Alfred Nobel invented various forms of introducing nitroglycerin into a medium in the 1860's and 1870's which made it incredibly usable and safe that helped fuel the industrial revolution. Since that time the study of explosive materials has been extensive both for military uses and commercial ones.