MTU Researcher Seeks Safer Explosives
HOUGHTON, MI--A Michigan Tech researcher is investigating characteristics of explosives. Dr. A. Barry Kunz of MTU's Department of Electrical Engineering has received a ten-year $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Naval Research to make explosives more reliable.
Kunz and a team of researchers will attempt "to answer the scientific question: What happens in the transition of an energetic solid from benign to explosive?" An energetic solid is any solid that will explode or burn vigorously. "What surprises most people, myself included, is that the transition is not thermally activated. It happens too quickly," he explained. "Dr. Yogi Gupta, at Washington State University, has found that it takes less than 100 pico seconds, or ten to the negative ten seconds. It is a complicated problem, but by understanding it, we hope to be able to control it."
Another goal the research team has is to design and guide users to new, safer and more energetic explosives. "One success we have had," explains Kunz, "is to accurately deduce the properties of Fox 7, an explosive developed in Sweden that had not yet been investigated." By researching the explosives, they hope to find which are the least stable and eliminate their use.
Their final goal is to design a higher concentration of fluorine for the next generation of missiles. These would enable them to burn boron instead of aluminum to make them more powerful and, hopefully, more reliable.
Benefits of their research could include, safer and more reliable military systems, improved space exploration through the use of fluorine explosives, and safer conditions for researchers. "Safety is the biggest concern," explains Kunz, "You don't want your explosives to blow up before you want them to blow up."
For more information, contact Dr. A. Barry Kunz at 906-487-3115 or by email at albert@mtu.edu
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04/02/99 MTN #069