Preparation and study of some characteristics of spherical gunpowder based on nitrocellulose and DINA

This article presents the results of research on the selection of components, recipes, method and technological regime for the production of spherical gunpowders based on nitrocellulose (grade Pi-BA) and ethylene glycol-N-nitramine dinitrate (DINA), as well as the results of studying some of their characteristics. In these gunpowders, DINA plays the role of an energetic plasticizer with a content in the range of 8.2 - 39.4% by mass. The selected technological regime allows to obtain spherical gunpowders with high yield on a laboratory scale (over 95% for particle sizes less than 1 mm and over 90% for particle sizes in the range of 0.2 - 0.8 mm). The obtained samples of spherical gunpowders have a density in the range of 1.60 - 1.62 g/cm3 and a bulk density in the range of 0.98 - 1.02 g/cm3, which well meets the requirements commonly applied to these criteria for military-use spherical gunpowders. The introduction of DINA has slight effect on the auto-ignition temperature of the obtained samples. Theoretical calculations of some energetic characteristics using the REALWIN program also show the potential of using DINA to replace nitroglycerin as a second energetic component in the development of high-energy spherical gunpowder.