title: Outdoor dissolution of detonation residues of three insensitive munitions (IM) formulations.
abstract: We seek to understand the environmental fate of three new insensitive munitions, explosive formulations developed to reduce the incidence of unintended detonations. To this end, we measured the size distribution of residues from low order detonations of IMX 101, IMX 104, and PAX 21-filled munitions and are studying how these three formulations weather and dissolve outdoors. The largest pieces collected from the detonations were centimeter-sized and we studied 12 of these in the outdoors test. We found that the particles break easily and that the dissolution of 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN) is quasi-linear as a function of water volume. DNAN is the matrix and the least soluble major constituent of the three formulations. We used DNAN's linear dissolution rate to estimate the life span of the pieces. Particles ranging in mass from 0.3 to 3.5 g will completely dissolve in 3-21 years given 100 cm y(-1) precipitation rates.
authors.affiliation: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 72 Lyme Road, Hanover, NH 03755-1290, USA. Electronic address: Susan.Taylor@erdc.dren.mil.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.affiliation: Biosphere 2, University of Arizona, 845 N. Park Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0158, USA.
authors.forename: Katerina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dontsova
authors.affiliation: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 72 Lyme Road, Hanover, NH 03755-1290, USA.
authors.forename: Marianne E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Walsh
authors.affiliation: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, 72 Lyme Road, Hanover, NH 03755-1290, USA.
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Walsh
mesh_terms: D000840:Anisoles; D053834:Explosive Agents / Q000378:metabolism*; D012995:Solubility; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D000840:Anisoles; D053834:Explosive Agents; D014867:Water; C539360:2,4-dinitroanisole
keywords: Insensitive muntions (IM); Outdoor dissolution; Particle life spans; Particle size distributions