Safe explosives for shaped charges

It was demonstrated that high-performance shaped charges could be developed using as the explosive charge mixtures of ingredients that are not, by themselves, considered explosives. At least one of the ingredients needed to be a liquid, stored separately, that could be quickly injected into the shaped charge cavity to generate the active explosive. Precision copper shaped charge cones in diameters of 65.2, 83.8, and 100.2 mm (about 2.6, 3.3, and 4.0 in.) were obtained and appropriate hardware was fabricated. It was demonstrated that 4 cone diameters of penetration were obtained in 255 BHN armor plate steel if the explosive charge was nitromethane or a combination of fine crystalline ammonium nitrate at a density of 1.0 Mg/m3 with nitromethane. However, when prilled ammonium nitrate was used with nitromethane, the jet failed to form. The shaped charges would be used to destroy the high explosive in a nuclear warhead in case of imminent enemy threat to the weapon