Dover, New Jersey: Picatinny Arsenal. 1974. – 279 p.Conference. The selection of materials to be used with explosives, propellants, and similar high energy compounds is generally based on the physical properties required of the resulting system. However, the ability to use a given material with a given high energy compound is ultimately determined by the compatibility of the two within the resulting system.
There are two aspects of compatibility to be considered: the effect of the materials on the high energy compound, and the effect of the high energy compound on the materials.
Compatible materials are those that may be used in conjunction with high energy compounds and have no potential for interaction that could in a hazardous or environmentally unstable device. Traditionally, compatibility has been determined by predictive test techniques. For example, the effect of a high energy compound on a plastic material may be tested by exposing the plastic to the high energy compound at elevated temperatures, and at selected intervals removing samples and measuring properties considered critical to operation of the device. On the other hand, the effect of a material on the behavior of a high energy compound is not routinely determined and, in fact, has been the subject of extensive studies dating back to World War II. Mr. S. Axelrod of Picatinny Arsenal in his report, "Effects Produced Upon Explosives by Contact with Plastics, Report No. 1" dated December 1946, discusses use of the vacuum-stability test to evaluate compatibility. Miss Marjorie St. Cyr later published an early compilation of vacuum stability compatibility results in a report entitled, "Compatibility of Explosives with Polymers" dated March 1959. Also, several compilations of data have been published by PLASTEC, Sandia Labs. Picatinny Arsenal, and others. To this day, vacuum stability remains the most readily accepted test in predicting compatibility of materials with high energy compounds.
