This is excellent news, and a no brain-er. By switching to an explosive like this, IED’s or RPG enemy attacks will have a less likely-hood of detonating these IMX-101 based munitions. I have no idea if they will put this in the smaller munitions, but the bigger artillery rounds will have it.
That is good news for the guys who have to transport this stuff by air, land or sea. Even those that are posted at combat outposts where one rocket or mortar could land on an ammunition magazine, and potentially blow it and the base up. Having these types of munitions will at least minimize the chance of ‘secondary’ type deaths and injuries that can happen in these types of attacks. –Matt
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Goodbye to TNT: Engineers qualify safer, more stable explosive
By Tracy Robillard
August 11, 2010
The U.S. Army recently qualified a new explosive that has the same lethality as traditional TNT, but is safer for Soldiers because it is far less likely to explode if dropped, shot at or hit by a roadside bomb during transport.
The new formula, called IMX-101 (Insensitive Munitions Explosive 101), is proven to be safer and more stable than TNT, which ultimately eases the warfighter’s job when it comes to transporting, storing and loading ammunition containing the new explosive.
“It allows us to meet the lethality of TNT, while being more thermally stable,” said Philip Samuels, a chemical engineer with Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC).
“We’re taking the conventional explosive and replacing it with a group of ingredients that are less sensitive.”
Anthony Di Stasio, ARDEC Project Officer, said, “Because it’s less sensitive, the Army can store more shells in a magazine, they can store more of it in one building at a closer distance to the Soldiers. It significantly reduces the logistics burden both here in the U.S. and overseas.”
Throughout the last four years, experts at ARDEC and Project Manager, Combat Ammunition Systems (PM CAS) have worked together to select, test and prepare a more stable explosive to meet the Department of Defense requirement for insensitive munitions.
The goal was to find a safer, less sensitive formula that could easily be fitted for use in the Army’s existing large-caliber projectiles.
In 2007, the Picatinny team began an open competition, soliciting TNT-like formulas from government, foreign, and private organizations under the Common Low-cost Insensitive Munitions Explosive (CLIMEx) program. The team received 23 submissions, and after a year of testing, they selected the top three formulas to advance to another round of system level tests.