A method of producing an explosive composition comprising a liquid energetic material and sensitizing voids, the sensitizing voids being present in the liquid energetic material with a non-random distribution, which method comprises: providing a flow of liquid energetic material; and delivering sensitizing voids into the flow of liquid energetic material in a series of pulses to provide regions in the liquid energetic material in which sensitizing voids are sufficiently concentrated to render those regions detonable and regions in the liquid energetic material in which the sensitizing voids are not so concentrated.

A method of additively manufacturing propellant elements, such as for rocket motors, includes partially curing a propellant mixture before extruding or otherwise dispensing the material, such that the extruded propellant material is deposited on the element in a partially-cured state. The curing process for the partially-cured extruded material may be completed shortly after the material is put into place, for example by the material being heated at or above its cure temperature, such that it finishes curing before it fully cools. The propellant material may be prepared by first mixing together, a fuel, an oxidizer, and a binder, such as in an acoustic mixer. After that mixing a curative may be added to the mixture. The propellant mixture may then be directed to an extruder (or other dispenser), in which the mixture is heated to or above a cure temperature prior to the deposition, and then deposited.

A mobile manufacturing and delivery platform that is adapted to provide in a blasthole an explosive composition comprising a liquid energetic material and sensitizing voids, the sensitizing voids being present in the liquid energetic material with a non-random distribution. The platform comprises a storage tank for the liquid energetic material; at least two delivery lines for conveying respective streams of the liquid energetic material from the storage tank; a void delivery system for producing sensitizing voids in at least one of the streams of liquid energetic material; a mixer for mixing the streams of liquid energetic material to produce the explosive composition; and a blasthole loading hose. The mixer may be provided at the end of the loading hose. A blasting method employs the platform to manufacture and deliver the explosive composition into a blasthole, which composition is subsequently detonated.

A method of forming a gas generant according to various implementations includes the steps of providing a mixture of copper nitrate and water and adding melamine and guanidine carbonate to the copper nitrate and water mixture at room temperature. Next, the melamine, guanidine carbonate, copper nitrate, and water mixture is mixed and heated to form a melamine nitrate, guanidine nitrate, basic copper nitrate, and water mixture. The heating and mixing step may be performed at a temperature in the range of 50 C. to 60 C. for at least 20 minutes. Then, the melamine nitrate, guanidine nitrate, basic copper nitrate, and water mixture is dried to form the gas generant comprising melamine nitrate, guanidine nitrate, and basic copper nitrate. The method may further comprise a step of adding an additional fuel, an additional oxidizer, or an additive. Also disclosed is a gas generant made by the method described above.

An effective, safe and economical method of manufacture of an insensitive high explosive molding powder usable as a booster HE. The method preferably involving the steps of adding a binder and a crystalline high explosive to water, grinding that suspension in a bead mill until the crystalline high explosive is nano-sized, and precipitating the binder and crystalline high explosive using a spray dryer. Alternatively, an aqueous suspension of the crystalline high explosive can be ground in the bead mill and the binder subsequently added, prior to spray drying. A fatty alcohol, water defoaming/dispersant/surfactant agent can be added to the dissolved binder/suspended crystalline high explosive, to aid in the manufacturability.

The present invention relates to a method for producing ANFO on the basis of filtration and purification of the residual oils of a mine in a filter truck especially designed and developed for this purpose, with the aim of completely replacing the diesel fuel 2 with said residual oils that have been previously treated in order to mix same with ammonium nitrate, as well as the product resulting from said method. The aim of this invention is to use the residual oil produced in mines in large quantities, as the only combustible agent in the production of ANFO, generating cost savings by completely substituting diesel 2 and additionally eliminating the existing risk inherent in the removal of the residual oil from the mine and the negative impact that it can generate in the environment if it is not used appropriately.

The present invention provides a modular installation (1) for carrying out a method of manufacturing an explosive emulsion precursor comprising at least three containers: a first container (100) for preparing an aqueous phase, including a dissolution first tank (110); and at least one second and/or third container (200, 300) including a second tank for preparing oily phase (210) and a third tank for preparing emulsion (310); and at least one fourth and/or fifth container (400, 500) including means (410) for feeding heat and means (510) for feeding electrical energy; and said first, second and/or third containers (100, 200, 300) being juxtaposed over at least a portion of one of their walls (100a, 300b, 200b) and being provided with openings (170, 370a, 275, 375, 270b) in their walls.

An ignition composition comprising a low electron affinity material, an oxidizer and a binder. The ignition composition may be made by A1) preparing a coagulation composition by a shock-gel process using the ingredients of the ignition composition disclosed herein, which comprises: A1-a) dissolving the binder in a low-boiling-point polar solvent to provide a binder solution; A1-b) mixing the low electron affinity material and the oxidizer with the binder solution; and A1-c) adding a low-boiling-point non-polar solvent to the mixture provided by step 1-b) to precipitate the binder and form the coagulation composition; and A2) converting the coagulation composition into granular composition using a suitable method.

A method continuously produces emulsion explosive by emulsification and sensitization in a static state without a loading pump. After the water phase and oil phase enters a static emulsifier for emulsification, the emulsion enters a static sensitization device; the sensitizer enters the static sensitization device through the sensitizer charging inlet and mixes with the emulsion in the static sensitization device. After emulsification and sensitization, the sensitized explosive directly enters an injection pipe for encapsulation. By adopting the static emulsifier and sensitization device, the explosive material storage amount is greatly reduced, and mechanical stirring and shearing for emulsification is avoided. Meanwhile, mechanical mixing for sensitization is omitted and replaced with full-static high-temperature sensitization, and the safety of sensitization is improved. The loading pump is omitted, and the sensitized emulsion directly enters the injection pipe, thus the risk points in the production process and the online explosive material storage amount are reduced.

A nanoenergetic material composite having a remote ignition characteristic by a high-power pulsed laser beam is prepared by adding various contents of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) to a nanoenergetic composite material (nEM) to enable remote ignition by a high-power laser beam. The nanoenergetic material composite is a MWCNT/nEM composite powder prepared by adding multiwalled carbon nanotubes to the nanoenergetic material, which is a mixture of fuel material nanoparticles and metal oxidizer nanoparticles, wherein the multiwalled carbon nanotubes enhance a combustion rate of the MWCNT/nEM composite powder by delivering thermal energy upon remote optical ignition by the high-power pulsed laser beam.