The book describes the science and technology of formulation and manufacturing of non-nitroglycerine explosives with ammonium nitrate as the main ingredient. Based on the author's industry experience of more than thirty years, it provides an unparalleled treatment of one of the commercially most important classes of explosives and therefore stimulates further research and development efforts in the field of explosives for civil applications.

Nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) a highly promising new technique for bulk explosives detection: relatively inexpensive, more compact than NMR, but with considerable selectivity. Since the NQR frequency is insensitive to long-range variations in composition, mixing explosives with other materials, such as the plasticizers in plastic explosives, makes no difference. The NQR signal strength varies linearly with the amount of explosive, and is independent of its distribution within the volume monitored. NQR spots explosive types in configurations missed by the X-ray imaging method.

But if NQR is so good, why it is not used everywhere? Its main limitation is the low signal-to-noise ratio, particularly with the radio-frequency interference that exists in a field environment, NQR polarization being much weaker than that from an external magnetic field. The distinctive signatures are there, but are difficult to extract from the noise. In addition, the high selectivity is partly a disadvantage, as it is hard to build a multichannel system necessary to cover a wide range of target substances. Moreover, substances fully screened by metallic enclosures, etc. are difficult to detect. A workshop was held at St Petersburg in July 2008 in an attempt to solve these problems and make NQR the universal technique for the detection of bombs regardless of type. This book presents the essentials of the papers given there.

Filled with practical applications and research, Biodegradation of Nitroaromatic Compounds and Explosives presents an international perspective on environmental contamination from explosives. It covers biodegradation strategies for DNT and a wide variety of other nitroaromatic compounds of environmental significance and makes the information accessible to practicing environmental and chemical engineers. Biodegradation of Nitroaromatic Compounds and Explosives gives you a synthesis of ongoing research and an appreciation of the remarkable range of biochemical strategies available for the transformation of nitroaromatic compounds. It provides a realistic assessment of the current and potential field applications of the various strategies.

Laser-Based Optical Detection of Explosives offers a comprehensive review of past, present, and emerging laser-based methods for the detection of a variety of explosives. This book: Considers laser propagation safety and explains standard test material preparation for standoff optical-based detection system evaluation Explores explosives detection using deep ultraviolet native fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, reflectometry, and hyperspectral imaging Examines photodissociation followed by laser-induced fluorescence, photothermal methods, cavity-enhanced absorption spectrometry, and short-pulse laser-based techniques Describes the detection and recognition of explosives using terahertz-frequency spectroscopic techniques Each chapter is authored by a leading expert on the respective technology, and is structured to supply historical perspective, address current advantages and challenges, and discuss novel research and applications. Readers are left with an in-depth understanding and appreciation of each technology's capabilities and potential for standoff hazard detection.

Advances in Terrestrial Drilling: Ground, Ice, and Underwater includes the latest drilling and excavation principles and processes for terrestrial environments. The chapters cover the history of drilling and excavation, drill types, drilling techniques and their advantages and associated issues, rock coring including acquisition, damage control, caching and transport, and data interpretation, as well as unconsolidated soil drilling and borehole stability. This book includes a description of the basic science of the drilling process, associated processes of breaking and penetrating various media, the required hardware, and the process of excavation and analysis of the sampled media. Describes recent advances in terrestrial drilling. Discusses drilling in the broadest range of media including terrestrial surfaces, ice and underwater from shallow penetration to very deep. Provides an in-depth description of key drilling techniques and the unified approach to assessing the required tools for given drilling requirements. Discusses environmental effects on drilling, current challenges of drilling and excavation, and methods that are used to address these. Examines novel drilling and excavation approaches. Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen is the Supervisor of the Electroactive Technologies Group (http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/) and a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab/Caltech, Pasadena, CA. His research is focused on electro-mechanics including planetary sample handling mechanisms, novel actuators that are driven by such materials as piezoelectric and EAP (also known as artificial muscles), and biomimetics. Dr. Kris Zacny is a Senior Scientist and Vice President of Exploration Systems at Honeybee Robotics, Altadena, CA. His expertise includes space mining, sample handling, soil and rock mechanics, extraterrestrial drilling, and In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU).

Advances in Extraterrestrial Drilling: Ground, Ice, and Underwater includes the latest advances that have been made in recent years in developing drilling and excavation mechanisms for extraterrestrial bodies. The chapters cover drill types, drilling techniques and their advantages and associated issues, rock coring including acquisition, damage control, caching and transport, and data interpretation, as well as unconsolidated soil drilling and borehole stability. This book includes a description of the basic science of the drilling process, associated processes of breaking and penetrating various media, the required hardware, and the process of excavation and analysis of the sampled media. Covers the most recent advances in extraterrestrial drilling. Discusses drilling in the broadest range of media including ground, ice, underwater, and planetary surfaces from shallow to very deep. Provides a comprehensive description of key drilling techniques and the efforts to develop unified approach to assessing the required tools for given drilling requirements. Discusses how environment affects drilling and approaches to addressing the effects and current challenges of drilling and excavation on other planets. Examines novel drilling and excavation approaches. Dr. Yoseph Bar-Cohen is the Supervisor of the Electroactive Technologies Group (http://ndeaa.jpl.nasa.gov/) and a Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab/Caltech, Pasadena, CA. His research is focused on electro-mechanics including planetary sample handling mechanisms, novel actuators that are driven by materials such as piezoelectric and EAP (also known as artificial muscles), and biomimetics. Dr. Kris Zacny is a Senior Scientist and Vice President of Exploration Systems at Honeybee Robotics, Altadena, CA. His expertise includes space mining, sample handling, soil and rock mechanics, extraterrestrial drilling, and In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU).

This volume provides an overview of current research and recent advances in the area of energetic materials, focusing on explosives and propellants. The contents and format reflect the fact that theory, experiment and computation are closely linked in this field.
The challenge of developing energetic materials that are less sensitive to accidental stimuli continues to be of critical importance. This volume opens with discussions of some determinants of sensitivity and its correlations with various molecular and crystal properties. The next several chapters deal in considerable detail with different aspects and mechanisms of the initiation of detonation, and its quantitative description. The second half of this volume focuses upon combustion. Extensive studies model ignition and combustion, with applications to different propellants. The final chapter is an exhaustive computational treatment of the mechanism and kinetics of combustion initiation reactions of ammonium perchlorate.
Overall, this volume illustrates the progress that has been made in the field of energetic materials and some of the areas of current activity. It also indicates the challenges involved in characterizing and understanding the properties and behaviour of these compounds. The work is a unique state-of-the-art treatment of the subject, written by pre-eminent researchers in the field.
- Overall emphasis is on theory and computation, presented in the context of relevant experimental work
- Presents a unique state-of-the-art treatment of the subject
- Contributors are preeminent researchers in the field

This unique book is a store of less well-known explosion and
detonation phenomena, including also data and experiences related to
safety risks. It highlights the shortcomings of the current
engineering codes based on a classical plane wave model of the
phenomenon, and why these tools must fail.
For the first time all the explosion phenomena are described in terms
of proper assemblages of hot spots, which emit pressure waves and
associated near field terms in flow. Not all of the approaches are
new. Some even date back to the 19th century or earlier.. What is new
is the application of these approaches to explosion phenomena. In
order to make these tools easily available to the current detonation
physicist, basic acoustics is therefore also addressed.
Whereas the current plane wave, homogeneous flow detonation physics
is an excellent engineering tool for numerical predictions under
given conditions, the multi-hot-spot-model is an additional tool for
analyzing phenomena that cannot be explained by classical
calculations. The real benefit comes from being able to understand,
without any artificial assumptions, the whole phenomenology of
detonations and explosions. By specifying pressure generating
mechanisms, one is able to see that the current treatment of the
detonics of energetic materials is only a very special - but powerful
- case of explosion events and hazards. It becomes clear that
physical explosions must be taken into account in any safety
considerations. In these terms it is easy to understand why even
liquid carbon dioxide and inert silo materials can explode.
A unique collection of unexpected events, which might surprise even
specialists, has resulted from the evaluation of the model. Therefore
this book is valuable for each explosion and safety scientist for the
understanding and forecasting of unwanted events. The text mainly
addresses the next generation of explosion and detonation scientists,
with the goal of promoting the science of detonation on a new
physical basis. For this reason gaps in current knowledge are also
addressed. The science of explosions is not fully mature, but is
still in its beginning - and the tools necessary for furthering the
understanding of these phenomena have been with us for centuries.

This book reviews the development of research into the explosive loading of structures, mainly since the beginning of the twentieth century. Major contributions in the fields of measurement, analysis and prediction are discussed. Dynamic loading from conventional high explosives is examined, as well as the effects of liquid propellant, dust, gas, vapour, and fuel/air explosions. Subjects include blast in tunnels, underground and underwater explosions, pressure measurement and blast stimulation. Explosive effects on civil buildings, civil bridges, aircraft and ships are summarized, including the estimation of residual strength. The concluding passages refer to structural safety and reliability.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203473868

This book offers a comprehensive account of energetic materials, including their synthesis, computational modeling, applications, associated degradation mechanisms, environmental consequences and fate and transport. This multi-author contributed volume describes how armed forces around the world are moving their attention from legacy explosive compounds, which are heat and shock sensitive (thus posing greater challenges in terms of handling and storage), to the insensitive munitions compounds/formulations such as insensitive munitions explosive (IMX) and the Picatinny Arsenal Explosive (PAX) series of compounds. The description of energetic materials focuses on explosives, pyrotechnic compositions, and propellants. The contributors go on to explain how modern generation energetic compounds must be insensitive to shock and heat but at the same time yield more energy upon explosion. Nanoinspired and/or co-crystallized energetic materials offer another route to generate next-generation energetic materials, and this authoritative book bridges a large gap in the literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of these compounds. Additionally, it includes a valuable overview of energetic materials, a detailed discussion of recent advances on future energetic compounds, nanotechnology in energetic materials, environmental contamination and toxicity, assessment of munitions lethality, the application quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) in design of energetics and the fate and transport of munition compounds in the environment.

Laser-Based Optical Detection of Explosives offers a comprehensive review of past, present, and emerging laser-based methods for the detection of a variety of explosives. This book: Considers laser propagation safety and explains standard test material preparation for standoff optical-based detection system evaluation Explores explosives detection using deep ultraviolet native fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, reflectometry, and hyperspectral imaging Examines photodissociation followed by laser-induced fluorescence, photothermal methods, cavity-enhanced absorption spectrometry, and short-pulse laser-based techniques Describes the detection and recognition of explosives using terahertz-frequency spectroscopic techniques Each chapter is authored by a leading expert on the respective technology, and is structured to supply historical perspective, address current advantages and challenges, and discuss novel research and applications. Readers are left with an in-depth understanding and appreciation of each technology's capabilities and potential for standoff hazard detection.

From prehistory to the present-day conservation movement, Pyne explores the efforts of successive American cultures to master wildfire and to use it to shape the landscape.

"On rare occasions, the historical literature is enriched by the introduction of a broad new field for study, by a book that dramatically expands the boundaries of scholarly investigation. Stephen Pyne's Fire in America is such a book. It achieves the Promethean goal of bringing fire to history". -- Science

"Stephen J. Pyne compels our admiration for his gargantuan ambition and richly informed intelligence. He tells us more than anyone else to date has about the role of fire in the landscape, tells us we have been wrong in assuming a pristine state of nature before the white man's invasion, tells us what fire has meant to the rise of civilization and this nation. No one interested in environmental history can afford to ignore this massive achievement". -- Journal of American History

There is considerable scope for improving the outcome of any blasting operation through basic understanding and application of the principles of blasting science and technology. The main objective of Performance of Explosives and New Developments is to sensitize the practitioner to critically examine the various empirical approaches in blasting which may have been in use for a long time, but lack any sound material basis. On the other hand, where the empirical approaches have proven of value, significant additional improvement can be achieved through better understanding of the underlying process. None of the components involved in a blasting operation should be treated in isolation, as they are all interlinked. Fragmentation of rock by blasting represents the first stage in the size reduction process which is essential to extraction of valuable minerals and metals. Therefore, understanding the performance of the explosive and initiators under actual field conditions, and critical assessment of the blast results afterwards are central to effective blast design, improved productivity, and novel applications. Performance of Explosives and New Developments presents the state of the art on explosive energy, its utilization in blasting, and some new developments and innovative applications, and is aimed at academics and practitioners in the field.

Tunnelling in Rock by Drilling and Blasting presents the latest developments in the excavation of tunnels using the drilling and blasting method. Examples of work conducted throughout the world including the Indian sub-continent, Australia, and Sweden amongst others are discussed. These tunnel projects serve to illustrate the challenges and importance of drilling accuracy, the effect of geology, methods of vibration prediction and control, and techniques for assessing tunnel performance in terms of overbreak and underbreak, advance and rock mass damage. A number of case studies demonstrate the ingenuity required to successfully excavate tunnels in demanding circumstances. Finally, an overview is provided of the software tools and IT, and the explosives and initiation products used to implement tunnel blast designs. Tunnelling in Rock by Drilling and Blasting is the outcome of the workshop, Tunnelling in Rock by Drilling and Blasting, hosted by the 10th International Symposium on Rock Fragmentation by Blasting (Fragblast 10, November 2010, New Delhi, India), and is essential reading for researchers and practitioners in tunnelling in rock by drilling and blasting.

New technological innovations offer significant opportunities to promote and protect human rights. At the same time, they also pose undeniable risks. In some areas, they may even be changing what we mean by human rights. The fact that new technologies are often privately controlled raises further questions about accountability and transparency and the role of human rights in regulating these actors. This volume - edited by Molly K. Land and Jay D. Aronson - provides an essential roadmap for understanding the relationship between technology and human rights law and practice. It offers cutting-edge analysis and practical strategies in contexts as diverse as autonomous lethal weapons, climate change technology, the Internet and social media, and water meters. This title is also available as Open Access.

Nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) a highly promising new technique for bulk explosives detection: relatively inexpensive, more compact than NMR, but with considerable selectivity. Since the NQR frequency is insensitive to long-range variations in composition, mixing explosives with other materials, such as the plasticizers in plastic explosives, makes no difference. The NQR signal strength varies linearly with the amount of explosive, and is independent of its distribution within the volume monitored. NQR spots explosive types in configurations missed by the X-ray imaging method.

But if NQR is so good, why it is not used everywhere? Its main limitation is the low signal-to-noise ratio, particularly with the radio-frequency interference that exists in a field environment, NQR polarization being much weaker than that from an external magnetic field. The distinctive signatures are there, but are difficult to extract from the noise. In addition, the high selectivity is partly a disadvantage, as it is hard to build a multichannel system necessary to cover a wide range of target substances. Moreover, substances fully screened by metallic enclosures, etc. are difficult to detect. A workshop was held at St Petersburg in July 2008 in an attempt to solve these problems and make NQR the universal technique for the detection of bombs regardless of type. This book presents the essentials of the papers given there.

This book reviews the development of research into the explosive loading of structures, mainly since the beginning of the twentieth century. Major contributions in the fields of measurement, analysis and prediction are discussed. Dynamic loading from conventional high explosives is examined, as well as the effects of liquid propellant, dust, gas, vapour, and fuel/air explosions. Subjects include blast in tunnels, underground and underwater explosions, pressure measurement and blast stimulation. Explosive effects on civil buildings, civil bridges, aircraft and ships are summarized, including the estimation of residual strength. The concluding passages refer to structural safety and reliability.

This book collects lectures of an international NATO-Russian Advanced Research Workshop on Detection and Disposal of Improvised Explosives (IE) used by terrorists. The disposal of IE is especially dangerous, because they are often much more unstable and mechanically more sensitive than commercial or military explosives. This text covers detection of explosives by different analytical methods and the different shape and compositions of the explosive charge, and offers up-to-date advice on handling and disposal.

Gunpowder studies are still in their infancy despite the long-standing civil and military importance of this explosive since its discovery in China in the mid-ninth century AD. In this second volume by contributors who meet regularly at symposia of the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), the research is again rooted in the investigation of the technology of explosives manufacture, but the fact that the chapters range in scope from the Old World to the New, from sources of raw materials in south-east Asia to the complications of manufacture in the West, shows that the story is more than the simple one of how an intriguing product was made. This volume is the first to develop the implications of the subject, not just in the sense of relating it to changing military technologies, but in that of seeing the securing of gunpowder supplies as fundamental to the power of the state and imperial pretensions.The search for saltpetre, for example, an essential ingredient of gunpowder, became a powerful engine of sea-going European trade from the early seventeenth century. Smaller states like Venice were unable to form these distant connections, and so to sustain a gunpowder army. Stronger states like France and Britain were able to do so, and became even more powerful as the demand for improved explosives fostered national strengths - leading to a development of the sciences, especially chemistry, in the former case, and of manufacturing techniques in the latter.

The fast detection of explosives from the vapor phase would be one way to enhance the protection of society against terrorist attacks. Up to now the problem of detection of explosives, especially the location of explosives whether at large areas e. g. station halls, theaters or hidden in cars, aircraft cargo, baggage or explosives hidden in crowds e. g. suicide bombers or bombs in bags has not been solved. Smelling of explosives like dogs do seems to be a valuable tool for a security chain. In general different strategies can be adopt to the basic problem of explosive detection: * bulk detection * vapor detection Normally meetings cover both aspects and applications of the detection. Even though both methods might fulfill special aspects of a general security chain the underlying scientific questions differ strongly. Because of that the discussions of the scientists and practitioners from the different main directions are sometimes only less specific. Therefore the NATO Advisory Panel in Security-Related Civil Science and Technology proposed a small series of NATO ARW's which focuses on the different scientific aspects of explosives detection methods. This book is based on material presented at the first NATO ARW of this series in Moscow which covered the topic: Vapor and trace detection of explosives. The second ARW was held in St. Petersburg and treated the topic Bulk detection methods. The third workshop was held in Warwick and focused on electronic noses which cover a somewhat different aspect of vapor detection.

The combustion properties of organic materials are used to assess their safety specifications. This knowledge is necessary to avoid potentially disastrous fires. The experimental determination of the combustion properties of a new organic compound is laborious and sometimes even impossible. This book describes methods for the determination and prediction of the combustion properties of organic compounds, along with some examples and exercises. This 2nd Edition includes an updated and improved presentation of the applicationnof different new models for reliable prediction of diverse aspects of flammability of organic compounds.

This unique monograph investigates the synthesis, properties and processing of energetic materials and propellant compositions. The thermal decomposition of energetic compounds, such as aliphatic and aromatic nitrocompounds, nitramines, nitroethers, organic azides and difluoroamines, polynitrous heterocycles, and onium salts of different acids, the most important components of modern propellants, are given. The kinetics and mechanisms of chemical reactions for both real and model compounds are presented and the classic problem of the dependence of explosive activity on molecular structure is examined.

New methods for a formal kinetic description of decay of condensed substances, the determination of the energy of bond rupture in polyfunctional compounds and the theory of solid-phase reactions are also given. Applications to problems of predicting the stability, compatibility, and the stabilization of explosives and propellant components are included.

The book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers and professionals in industry interested in chemical kinetics and the combustion of energetic materials.

This book contains papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop titled "Application of Gun and Rocket Propellants in Commercial Explosives." (SST.ARW975981) The workshop was organized in collaboration with codirector Dr. Bronislav V. Matseevich (KNIIM) and held in Krasnoarmeisk, Moscow Region, Russia, October 18-21, 1999. About 70 participants from 11 different countries took part in the meeting (Russia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, China, USA, Spain, Israel, Ukraine and the Netherlands). The workshop was principally the continuation of a previous NATO workshop on Conversion Concepts for Commercial Application and Disposal Technologies of Energetic Systems" held at Moscow, Russia, May 17-19, 1994 in the specific area of the reuse of gun and rocket propellants as ingredients in commercial explosives. Oldrich Machacek Vll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. B.V. Matseevich, Director of the Krasnoarmeisk Scientific Research Institute of Mechanization ("KNIIM") for his extensive involvement as co-director in organizing the Advanced Research Workshop in Krasnoarmeisk, Russia. Special thanks goes to Dr. V.P. Glinskij, Dr. LV. Vasiljeva and A.I. Fedonina from KNIIM and Dr. B. Vetlicky for invaluable assistance in preparation and the smooth operation ofthe workshop.

This book begins with an account of the evolution of improvised explosive devices using a number of micro case studies to explore how and why actors have initiated IED campaigns; how new and old technologies and expertise have been exploited and how ethical barriers to IED development and deployment have been dealt with. It proceeds to bring the evidence from the case studies together to identify themes and trends in IED development, before looking at what can realistically be done to mitigate the threat of IEDs in the new wars of the twenty first century. The book suggests that the advance and availability of a combination of technological factors, in conjunction with changes in the nature of contemporary conflicts, have led to the emergence of IEDs as the paradigmatic weapons of new wars. However their prevalence in contemporary and future conflicts is not inevitable, but rather depends on the willingness of multiple sets of actors at different levels to build a web of preventative measures to mitigate - if not eradicate - IED development and deployment.

Major advances, both in modeling methods and in the computing power required to make those methods viable, have led to major breakthroughs in our ability to model the performance and vulnerability of explosives and propellants. In addition, the development of proton radiography during the last decade has provided researchers with a major new experimental tool for studying explosive and shock wave physics. Problems that were once considered intractable - such as the generation of water cavities, jets, and stems by explosives and projectiles - have now been solved. Numerical Modeling of Explosives and Propellants, Third Edition provides a complete overview of this rapidly emerging field, covering basic reactive fluid dynamics as well as the latest and most complex methods and findings. It also describes and evaluates Russian contributions to the experimental explosive physics database, which only recently have become available. This book comes with downloadable resources that contain- * FORTRAN and executable computer codes that operate under Microsoft (R) Windows Vista operating system and the OS X operating system for Apple computers * Windows Vista and MAC compatible movies and PowerPoint presentations for each chapter * Explosive and shock wave databases generated at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Russian Federal Nuclear Centers Charles Mader's three-pronged approach - through text, computer programs, and animations - imparts a thorough understanding of new computational methods and experimental measuring techniques, while also providing the tools to put these methods to effective use.