New insights on the temperature influence on the detonation of emulsion explosives in rectangular shapes

Emulsion explosives based on ammonium nitrate are an easy-to-use explosive mainly used for mining. In principle, the ammonium nitrate emulsion can be sensitized by various methods like gassing or the addition of microballoons. The introduction of these hot-spots is important for an adiabatic compression and subsequent detonative propagation. This technique is reliable even at colder temperatures. Now, experiments in a rectangular test setup have shown that the size and composition of the sensitizing material indeed have an impact on the detonation ability of the emulsion explosive. This happens to an extent of a full detonation at 20°C and a failure at 0°C. Whereas, usually the ambient temperature does not have an influence on an effective detonation. Different calorimetric methods like DSC and MMC, as well as practical detonation tests and the UN-Test F.3 (BAM Trauzl Test) have been used to examine the behavior of emulsion explosives.