Under the title Energetic Materials, the author considers nearly all important homogeneous and heterogeneous systems such as solid and liquid explosives, pyrotechnic substances, mixtures used in combustion synthesis and all components of present rocket fuels. Since the combustion and explosion of these materials are greatly influenced by the kinetics of their chemical reactions, a quantitative study of those kinetics is of great interest for both theoretical and practical applications. Kinetic studies of the thermal decomposition of energetic materials have been very successful so far for both high and low temperatures, but only for gaseous systems. For condensed materials these studies were limited to low temperatures, mainly because of the lack of specialized techniques and instrumentation. In this book the author describes several new experimental techniques and also shows the results of his extensive research, which he carried out on the kinetics of fast high-temperature decomposition and thermal explosion of both research and commercial energetic materials.
