USA — Army approves safer explosive to replace TNT

PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. — The U.S. Army recent­ly qual­i­fied a new explo­sive that has the same lethal­i­ty as tra­di­tion­al TNT, but is far less like­ly to explode if dropped, shot at or hit by a road­side bomb dur­ing trans­port.

Dur­ing a slow cook-off test, the IMX-101-loaded pro­jec­tile is exposed to high tem­per­a­tures over an extend­ed peri­od. Instead of blow­ing up like tra­di­tion­al TNT, the explo­sive sim­ply melts from the top of the artillery shell, sim­i­lar to a vol­cano effect. Pho­to Cred­it: Cour­tesy pho­to. Click to enlarge

The new for­mu­la, called IMX-101 (Insen­si­tive Muni­tions Explo­sive 101), is sched­uled for deliv­ery to deployed Army and Marine Corps units in the form of 1,200 M795 artillery pro­jec­tiles as ear­ly as next year, as TNT sup­plies are even­tu­al­ly phased out. 

Numer­ous tests by the Picatin­ny team have proven that IMX-101 is a safer alter­na­tive to TNT in the Army and Marine Corps’ exist­ing large-cal­iber pro­jec­tiles, espe­cial­ly dur­ing trans­porta­tion, stor­age and loading. 

“If you were involved in an inci­dent near a tra­di­tion­al TNT pro­jec­tile hit with an RPG (rock­et pro­pelled grenade) or an impro­vised explo­sive device, you would­n’t be stand­ing here today to tell about it,” said Char­lie Patel, a pro­gram-man­age­ment engi­neer for Project Man­ag­er Com­bat Ammu­ni­tion Sys­tems here. “But with IMX-101, all that would hap­pen is the explo­sive would defla­grate (burn quick­ly), and the shell would break into a few pieces. You would­n’t have the big det­o­na­tion that would wipe out the vehi­cle and dri­ver or a whole stor­age area and crew.” 

“Because it’s less sen­si­tive, the Army can store more shells in a mag­a­zine, and store more in one build­ing at a clos­er dis­tance to the Sol­diers,” said Antho­ny Di Sta­sio, project offi­cer with the Arma­ment Research, Devel­op­ment and Engi­neer­ing Cen­ter, known as ARDEC here. “It sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the logis­tics bur­den both here in the U.S. and overseas.” 

The selec­tion of IMX-101 is part of an ongo­ing pro­gram at Picatin­ny to find low-cost, insen­si­tive muni­tions to meet require­ments set by the Depart­ment of Defense. Dur­ing the selec­tion process, the team test­ed and eval­u­at­ed 23 dif­fer­ent for­mu­las, sub­mit­ted by gov­ern­ment, for­eign and pri­vate competitors. 

IMX-101, devel­oped by BAE Sys­tems, was cho­sen as the win­ning for­mu­la because it was the most cost-effec­tive option that exceed­ed all sys­tem tests. 

“The sys­tem lev­el tests rep­re­sent real haz­ards and threats our Sol­diers face in com­bat,” Di Sta­sio said. “If in they are being attacked by RPGs (rock­et-pro­pelled grenades), then we fire our new sys­tem with RPGs to make sure it can hold up.” 

While the mate­r­i­al cost for IMX-101 is high­er than TNT, the price will fall as the Army pro­duces more quan­ti­ties in com­ing years, Di Sta­sio said. How­ev­er, he explained the real cost sav­ings will come with the improved logis­tics of the new explo­sive, which will cost a sig­nif­i­cant amount less than the Army cur­rent­ly pays to trans­port and store TNT. 

The sec­ond-place con­tender was a for­mu­la devel­oped by ARDEC. While this explo­sive, named IMX-102, also exceed­ed all sys­tem tests, it costs more to pro­duce than BAE’s IMX-101. 

How­ev­er, ARDEC’s for­mu­la still holds val­ue in oth­er muni­tions appli­ca­tions, as Picatin­ny engi­neers con­tin­ue to find new ways to incor­po­rate this tech­nol­o­gy into oth­er sys­tems to ulti­mate­ly save warfight­er lives. 

Source:
Unit­ed States Army News Ser­vice
www.army.mil

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