Improvised Explosives for Detonators

General

A 12 man-month program has been performed with the objective of developing field expedient methods for preparing primary explosives for use in indigenous detonators.

Technical Approach

The approach to the task of developing field methods for preparing primary explosives was guided by three considerations:

(1) The existence of field methods for preparing four known compounds, the fulminates of mercury and silver, silver acetylide/silver nitrate (double salt), and hexamethylene triperoxidediamene (HMTD).
(2) The existence of a significant number of additional well-known primary explosives which could lend themselves to field expedient processes.

(3) The availability of much information concerning rather obscure compounds potentially capable of functioning as primary explosives.

In addition to these considerations the general program goal was the development of expedient procedures for the purpose of fabricating selected detonator systems using indigenous materials.

Program Outline

The program was divided into four operation-oriented tasks:

(1) Fabrication of indigenous detonators
(2) Preparation of primary explosives
(3) Preparation of booster explosives
(4) Testing of detonators