The Henkin-McGill critical temperature test for explosives revisited: An overview of historical and modern method development

Abstract

Many overarching standards, regulations, or other requirements necessitate that the critical temperature (T_crit) of an energetic material be known or estimate prior to operations such as heating. However, they rarely, if ever, provide a specific method for doing so. While other methods exist to calculate T_crit, such as the Frank-Kamenetskii equation, computer simulation, etc., these cannot be readily utilized for energetics that are physical mixtures (i.e. most pyrotechnics) or materials where detailed material properties required for such calculations are lacking.

In this study, a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) SBAT (Simulated Bulk Auto-ignition Test) apparatus is modified to perform Henkin cookoff tests. This creates a simple, efficient, and cost-effective solution to estimate required T_crit values for energetic materials. After a historical overview of the evolution of the Henkin test, several common energetic materials (PETN, RDX, etc.) for which T_crit has been readily calculated, and historical data is available, were analyzed for comparison and verification purposes. This was followed by a variety of pyrotechnic mixtures and other materials to where calculation methods cannot be readily used. The modified apparatus, as well as an updated sample shell sealing method, produced results that aligned well with historical data. It also produced reasonable T_crit estimates for those materials where the Frank-Kamenetskii equation cannot be applied.