Kim SH  Yeom GH  Moon I  Chae JS  Kim HS  Oh M

Vol. 20,  No. 4, pp. 398-405, Dec.  2014

Research department explosive (RDX) Combustion Explosives Ignition Simulation

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In the treatment of spent high energetic materials, the issues such as environmental pollution, safety as well as working capacity should be carefully considered and well examined. In this regard, incineration has been recommended as one of the most promising processes for the disposal of such explosives. Due to the fact that high energetic materials encompass various types and their different characteristics, the technology development dealing with various materials is not an easy task. In this study, rigorous modeling and dynamic simulation was carried out to predict dynamic physico-chemical phenomena for research department explosive (RDX). Plug flow reactor was employed to describe the incinerator with 263 elementary reactions and 43 chemical species. Simulation results showed that safe operations can be achieved mainly by controlling the reactor temperature. At 1,200K, only thermal decomposition (combustion) occurred, whereas increasing temperature to 1,300 K, caused the reaction rates to increase drastically, which led to ignition. The temperature further increased to 3,000 K which was the maximum temperature recorded for the entire process. Case studies for different operating temperatures were also executed and it was concluded that the modeling approach and simulation results will serve as a basis for the effective design and operation of RDX incinerator.