Properties of alternatively fueled ammonium nitrate explosives

C. Hurley, V. Petr & S. Liu

Department of Mining Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA
J. Banker
Dynamic Materials Corporation, Boulder, CO, USA

ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of testing the use of alternative fuels and crushed industrial qual-
ity Ammonium Nitrate (AN) as explosive material. By changing the fuels in an explosive mixture, the oxygen
balance of the explosive may also change affecting the total amount of energy released as well as detonation
velocity. Thus it is necessary to characterize the effects of alternative fuels regarding composition and grain
size on detonation velocity and critical diameter for detonation. This paper covers the initial testing of sugar
and coal dust as alternative fuels in ammonium nitrate based explosives used for explosive welding.

and produce fewer NOX gasses than a similarly fuel

1 INTRODUCTION
An explosive may consist of either a chemically
pure compound, such as Nitroglycerin, or a mix-
ture of an oxidizer and a fuel, such as ANFO
(Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil). Oxidizer is a
substance that in a chemical reaction contributes
atoms of one or more oxidizing elements, in
which the fuel component of the explosive burns.
Varying the properties of these components will
alter the chemical and physical properties of the
explosive.
1.1 Calculating Weight Ratios Using Oxygen
Balances
Oxygen Balance is defined as “the amount of oxy-
gen, expressed in weight percent, liberated as a re-
sult of complete conversion of the explosive material
to carbon dioxide, water, sulfur dioxide, aluminum
oxide, etc.” (Akhavan 1998) The compound is said
to have a positive oxygen balance if it contains more
oxygen than is needed and a negative oxygen bal-
ance if it contains less oxygen than is needed.
Changing the oxygen balance of an explosive has an
impact on both the available energy and the produc-
tion of harmful gasses. Negative oxygen balances
will produce greater quantities of CO and positive
oxygen balances will produce more NOx gasses.
In order to maximize an explosive’s energy po-
tential, the oxygen balance of explosive needs to be
approximately zero, with slightly negative balances
being preferred over slightly positive ones. Slightly
fuel lean mixtures have a greater detonation energy
rich mixture will.
The procedure for calculating oxygen balance of
a given explosive material is to determine the num-
ber of Mole Units of oxygen that are in excess or de-
ficient for the compound.
(1)
where:
X = number of atoms of carbon, Y = number of
atoms of hydrogen, Z = number of atoms of oxygen,
and M = number of atoms of metal (metallic oxide
produced). (Cooper 1996)
This methodology will be used to calculate the
oxygen balance of the alternative fuels in a later sec-
tion.
2 EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM
For this experimental program, two alternative fuels
were investigated, sugar and coal dust. These were
selected as fuels on the basis of cost and accessibil-
ity. Oxygen-balanced ammonium nitrate and fuel oil
(ANFO) was used as the control mixture to validate
the test results. No additional materials were added
to the mixtures to control the detonation. The parti-
cle size was controlled for both components for
proper mixing and a strict 50% passing a 75-mesh
sieve standard was implemented. Particle size anal-
ysis was performed on each sample before and after
mixing to ensure all tests passed these criteria.
Test boxes were constructed to maintain consis-
tent repeatability of sample dimensions and allow
the explosive to reach steady-state detonation. The tance between fiber optics, VOD can then be calcu-
dimensions of the test boxes and layout are intended lated using the following equation:
to minimize edge effects at the fiber optic probe lo-
cations. The forms were built using 8-mm particle VOD = ΔL/ΔT (3)
board to minimize the potential for the box to pro- where ΔL is the distance between cables and ΔT
duce fragments during testing. A schematic diagram is elapsed time between cables.
of a typical experimental box is shown in Figure 1.
The height of the wood box is 36 cm. Also shown in
figure 1 is a photograph of the manufactured box
with explosive and fiber optic probes. A metal base
plate was placed under the layer of explosive. The 35±0.1 cm 10±0.005cm 10±0.005cm
orange booster can be seen on the left side of the
box. Also visible are the fiber optic cables (black Figure 3. Schematic of fiber optic spacer
lines) inserted into the booster and a spacer. The re-
mainder of the box will be filled with containment 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
sand (~20 kg).
3.1 Oxygen Balance Calculation for the Alterna-
tive Fuels
Oxygen balances for each composition were cal-
29 cm 36 cm culated based upon the oxygen balances for the indi-
vidual components. The oxygen balances of the vari-
ous ingredients are given in Tables 1 and 2.
40 cm Table 1. Oxygen Balance for explosive mixes.
Mixes Component %
%OB
AN Fuel Oil Coal Dust Sugar
ANFO 94 6 - - -1.18
ANCHO 84 - - 16 -1.12
ANCoal 92 - 8 - -0.16
Figure 1. Top: Schematic of AN Testing form. Bottom: form
being used in testing. Table 2. Oxygen Balances for components

The densities of the manufactured explosive were Component %OB

measured on site during each test, using a 5-gallon
bucket to calculate mass with known volume. The
respective densities of sugar and AN (ANCHO),
coal dust and AN, and crushed ANFO were meas-
ured as 0.862 gram/cm3, 0.836 gram/cm3, and 0.803
gram/cm3, respectively. Using these densities and the
area of the wood forms, explosives quantities for a
given thickness were calculated. .
Detonation velocities (VOD) with not less than
18 cm of sand confinement of the alternative fuel
mixes were compared with similarly confined indus-
trial quality crushed ANFO. The critical thickness of
ANCHO was also tested and was experimentally es-
tablished to be approximately 2.4 cm, which is the
same as the crushed ANFO.
A fiber optic system was used to measure VOD.
The fiber optic cables were set a known distance
apart as shown in Figure 3 and Table 1, and wired to
an amplifier connected to an oscilloscope. As the re-
action passed by each cable, the light pulse was de-
tected by oscilloscope, which would then record the
time of the passage of the shockwave as a voltage
spike. A cable on the booster triggered the oscillo-
scope. Knowing the time between spikes and the dis-
AN 0.2
FO 3.33
Coal Dust -2.32
Sugar 1.12
Notice that the oxygen balances of the explosives
are all slightly negative, indicating that the explo-
sives are all fuel lean.
3.2 Grain Size of Solid Fuels
An important parameter to consider when using
solid fuels is the grain size of the fuel. When using
fuel oil, the grain size of the fuel is essentially zero,
allowing maximum intimacy between the fuel and
the oxidizer. Solid fuels must be crushed to maxi-
mize the surface area available to react with the oxi-
dizer. Store bought powdered sugar was used for this
testing. The AN and coal was ground at CSM. As
seen in Table 3 and the following figures, the com-
mercial powdered sugar has a much smaller grain
size than we were able to achieve with the coal dust.
We found that our grinding equipment was unable to
produce large quantities of sufficiently fine coal
 dust. Most of it was lost as airborne dust. A power
plant has been found as a source of ultra-fine coal
dust and full scale tests on coal dust and AN will be
conducted in the future. We also see that there is
substantial particle size variation in the crushed AN.
PSA data is summarized in Figures 4-7.

Table 3. Particle size distribution for crushed AN and AN-

CHO. Values are percentage of total mass
Crushed AN Particle Sieve Size
Size Analysis 20 40 75 100 200 pan
1,2 0 8 32 12 18 25
7 0 4 23 32 28 2.3
Test #
8,9 0 2 11 34 39 12
Ave 0 5 22 26 28 13
Sieve Size
ANCHO Particle
Size Analysis


20 40 75 100 200 pan
Fig.
 5.
 Sieve
 size
 vs
 %
 Retained,
 crushed
 AN+
 Sugar
 (AN‐
10 0 4 30 8 37 20 CHO)
and
average
value
line
from
two
samples.



Test # 11, 12 0 7 27 9 41 14
Ave 0 5.5 28.5 8.5 39 17
Values given as % of material retained by % passing
the given screen size



Figure 6. Sieve Size vs average % crushed AN retained and
% sugar retained



Fig. 4. Sieve
 size
 vs
 %
 Retained,
 crushed
 AN
 and
 average


value
line




Figure 7. Sieve size vs % AN and Coal Dust retained
 3.3 Testing of Detonation Velocity and Critical Both mixes experienced successful detonation at
Thickness 2-cm thickness. ANCHO failed to detonate at 1.5-c-
m, but AN + coal dust detonated successfully. Ex-
Detonation velocity (VOD) and critical thickness plosive quantities and VOD results for each test are
are the primary parameters that determine the suit- shown in Tables 5 and 6. VOD results are summa-
ability of an explosive compound for explosive rized in Figure 9.
welding. Critical thickness is the minimum thickness
at which an explosive will experience steady state Table 5. Explosive masses for critical thickness testing
detonation. This testing program was designed to de- Test AN (g) Fuel (g) Fuel (%)
termine first the VOD, then critical thickness.
2 cm ANCHO 3613.4 688.2 16
A total of three compositions were tested for VOD
in this program. Crushed ANFO was used as a base- 1.5 cm ANCHO 2710.2 516.2 16
line. The second and third compositions were 2 cm AN + coal dust 3107.2 248.6 8
crushed AN + coal dust and crushed AN with pow- 1.5 cm AN + coal dust 2787.6 242.4 8
dered sugar. The amounts of each of the explosive
mixtures are reported in Table 4. Table 6. VOD results for VOD and critical thickness tests
Average VOD (m/s)
Table 4. Explosive masses for VOD testing
3.5-cm 2-cm 1.5-cm
Un-compacted ANFO 4140 3950 -
Composition AN (g) Fuel (g) Fuel
ρ(g/cm3)
ANCHO 3218 3169 -
ANFO 5443.1 409.4 6% 0.803 AN + coal dust 2349 2399 2314
Coal Dust + AN 5443.1 473.1 8% 0.836
Sugar + AN 5443.1 1036.4 16% 0.862

The above quantities were chosen to give a 3.5-cm

thick explosive layer. 3.5-cm was decided on a safe
minimum thickness for steady state detonation in all
compositions.
Results of VOD testing are summarized in Figure
8 and Table 6.

Figure 9. Comparison of VODs for various thicknesses for

alternatively fueled AN explosives.

3.4 Cost Analysis

Figure 8. Comparison of VOD between Crushed ANFO,
ANCHO, and AN + Coal Dust
Critical thickness testing was performed on the
ANCHO and AN + coal dust compositions. Previous
testing has set the critical thickness of crushed
ANFO at 2-cm. This was used as a starting point for
testing the alternative fuel mixtures. Tests were
planned for 2-cm and 1.5-cm thicknesses of each. In
order to maximize the potential for successful deto-
nation during this testing, booster orientation was
changed from vertical (as seen in figure 1) to hori-
zontal. This was done to maximize the amount of
energy being transferred from the booster to the
charge.
The goal of these studies was to demonstrate the
feasibility of these alternatively fuel mixtures for in-
dustrial scale explosive welding applications. The
final part of this was rough cost analysis. Local costs
were used for AN, fuel oil, and powdered sugar.
Coal dust is typically a waste product that can be ob-
tained for free. Transportation costs were not taken
into account. The results of this analysis are shown
in Table 7.
 Table 7. Cost analysis for 1-kg charge Cooper, P. 1996. Explosives Enginering. New York: Wiley-
VCH, Inc.
AN AN Fuel Fuel Total Cost
(kg) ($/kg) (kg) ($/kg) ($//kg)
ANFO 0.94 $1.32 0.06 $1.21 $1.31
ANCHO 0.84 $1.32 0.16 $6.00 $2.07
AN + coal 0.92 $1.32 0.08 $0.00 $1.21
dust

4 CONCLUSIONS

This testing confirmed the potential of sugar as

alternative fuel in Ammonium Nitrate based explo-
sives. Coal dust also showed potential, but further
testing needs to be done to classify its properties.
When detonation is successfully achieved, these
compounds have a lower VOD than ANFO (3150
m/s for ANCHO and 2300 m/s for AN + Coal Dust
compared to the 4140 m/s of ANFO). Grain size of
both the fuel and oxidizer was found to be a critical
parameter. Grinding procedures need to be refined to
produce a more consistent AN product. The use of
an outside supplier for coal dust will greatly improve
its particle size and consistency. We would also like
to note that no work was done to find the Deflagra-
tion to Detonation Transition (DDT) distance in ei-
ther alternative fuel mix.
Based on preliminary cost analysis, AN + coal
dust could find applications in areas that waste coal
dust is readily available. Its economic competitive-
ness with ANFO is dependant on transportation
costs and the current price of fuel oil. ANCHO is not
economically feasible due to the high cost of sugar
and high quantity required. The potential economic
advantages of AN + coal dust will lead to future
study.
Despite the economic advantages of AN + coal
dust from the materials perspective, the applications
of it will be limited due to the difficulty achieving
homogenous mixing using the solid fuel. This will
increase the total cost of use for this explosive.
Future study of AN + coal dust will focus on the
influence of particle size, coal quality, and moisture
content on VOD and brisance. As the properties of
this material become better quantified, studies on di-
luents will be preformed to lower the VOD to opti-
mize it for certain processes.

4 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This project was supported under the Colorado

School of Mines, AXPRO Group consortium Project
(08/2007-05) supported by Dynamic Materials Cor-
poration. The authors acknowledge and appreciate
the assistance of Ray Johnson and Doug Aho from
the CSM Mining Engineering Department during the
sample preparation and testing. We would also like
to thank Roy Hardwick for suggesting the use of
sugar as a fuel for AN-based explosives.

REFERENCES

Akhavan, J. 1998. Chemistry of Explosives. Tyne, UK: Royal

Society of Chemistry