An efficient approach that combines short-term (minutes) highenergy dry ball milling and wet grinding to tailor the nano-and microstructure of Ni +Al composite reactive particles is reported. Varying the ball-milling conditions allows control of the volume fraction of two distinct milling-induced microstructures, that is, coarse and nanolaminated. It is found that increasing the fraction of nanolaminated structure present in the composite particles leads to a decrease in their ignition temperature (T ig ) from 700 and 500 K. Material with nanolaminated microstructure is also found to be more sensitive to impact ignition when compared with particles with a coarse microstructure. It is shown that kinetic energy (W cr ) thresholds for impact ignition, obtained for an optimized nanolaminated microstructure, is only 100 J. High-speed imaging showed that the impact-induced ignition occurs through formation of hot spots caused by impact. Molecular dynamic simulations of a model system suggest that impact-induced localized plastic deformation raises the local temperatures to ∼600 K, enough to initiate exothermic reactions. Analysis of the kinetics and reaction mechanism shows that the reason for low T ig and W cr for nanolaminated microstructure is the rapid solid-state dissolution of nickel in aluminum lattices.

Metal-based reactive composites have great potential as energetic materials due to their high energy densities and potential uses as structural energetic materials and enhanced blast materials however these materials can be difficult to ignite with typical particle size ranges. Recent work has shown that mechanical activation of reactive powders increases their ignition sensitivity, yet it is not fully understood how the role of microstructure refinement due to the duration of mechanical activation will influence the impact ignition and combustion behavior of these materials. In this work, impact ignition and combustion behavior of compacted mechanically activated Ni/Al reactive powder were studied using a modified Asay shear impact experiment where properties such as the impact ignition threshold, ignition delay time, and combustion velocity were identified as a function of milling time. It was found that the mechanical impact ignition threshold decreases from an impact energy of greater than 500 J to an impact energy of $50 J as the dry milling time increases. The largest jump in sensitivity was between the dry milling times of 25% of critical reaction milling time (t cr ) (4.25 min) and 50% t cr (8.5 min) corresponding to the time at which nanolaminate structures begin to form during the mechanical activation process. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis indicates that this jump in the sensitivity to thermal and mechanical impact is dictated by the formation of nanolaminate structures, which reduce the temperature needed to begin the dissolution of nickel into aluminum. It was shown that a milling time of 50%-75% t cr may be near optimal when taking into account both the increased ignition sensitivity of mechanical activated Ni/Al and potential loss in reaction energy for longer milling times. Ignition delays due to the formation of hotspots ranged from 1.2 to 6.5 ms and were observed to be in the same range for all milling times considered less than t cr . Combustion velocities ranged from 20-23 cm/s for thermally ignited samples and from 25-31 cm/s for impacted samples at an impact energy of 200-250 J.

This paper describes the synthesis and characterization of bis‐(triaminoguanidinium)‐3,3′‐dinitro‐5,5′‐azo‐1,2,4‐triazolate (TAGDNAT), a novel high‐nitrogen molecule that derives its energy release from both a high heat of formation and intramolecular oxidation reactions. TAGDNAT shows promise as a propellant or explosive ingredient not only due to its high nitrogen content (66.35 wt.‐%) but also due to its high hydrogen content (4.34 wt.‐%). This new molecule has been characterized with respect to its morphology, sensitivity properties, explosive, and combustion performance. The heat of formation of TAGDNAT was also experimentally determined. The results of these studies show that TAGDNAT has one of the fastest low‐pressure burning rates (at 6.9 MPa) measured till date, 6.79 cm s−1 at 6.9 MPa (39% faster than triaminoguanidinium azotetrazolate (TAGzT), a comparable high‐nitrogen/high‐hydrogen material). Furthermore, its pressure sensitivity is 0.507, a 33% reduction compared to TAGzT.

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