Effect of Nano-Magnesium Hydride on the Thermal Decomposition Behaviors of RDX

In order to improve the detonation performance of hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) explosive, addictive with high heat values were used, and magnesium hydride (MgH₂) is one of the candidates. However, it is important to see whether MgH₂ is a safe addictive. In this paper, the thermal and kinetic properties of RDX and mixture of RDX/MgH₂ were investigated by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC), respectively. The apparent activation energy (E) and frequency factor (A) of thermal explosion were calculated based on the data of DSC experiments using the Kissinger and Ozawa approaches. The results show that the addition of MgH₂ decreases both E and A of RDX, which means that the mixture of RDX/MgH₂ has a lower thermal stability than RDX, and the calculation results obtained from the ARC experiments data support this too. Besides, the most probable mechanism functions about the decomposition of RDX and RDX/MgH₂ were given in this paper which confirmed the change of the decomposition mechanism.