Latest Developments in Energetic Materials

In this book recent advances in the field of energetic materials are reported. Energetic materials are those chemical compounds which are used for explosions or propulsion of rockets and artillery shells. However, energetic materials are rarely used in their pure form but as a mixture of different other components to enhance their properties. During the usage of these materials, one not only has to worry about danger of unintended explosion or fire, but also about long term health issues associated with handling of these materials because some of them are carcinogenic. Therefore, this book is divided into 4 sections. In the first section, a brief introduction to different terminologies and classification of energetic materials is given. In the second section, articles related to processing related issues of energetic materials are presented. In these articles, authors have described methods for preparing nano-aluminum particles for use as fuel component in the energetic composite formulation, where usage of nano particles not only provides better mixing but it also increases performance. In another article, a coating method is explained. This section also explains the methods for casting energetic materials into desired shapes and methods to calculate usage requirements.

In third section, different synthesis methods and crystal structure of energetic materials are presented. In the last section, articles related to computational studies of energetic materials, and reports on health hazards related to them are presented. In the last section, few articles related to environmental and health issues associated with the use of these material are given. In addition, some articles related to computation methods for performance prediction are also presented.