The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

TESTING OF DETONATORS 423
later recommended a bomb of larger diameter, Bureau of Mines
sand test bomb No. 2, as being able to differentiate more exactly
between the different grades of detonators in commercial use. The
test grew out of an earlier test which Snelling had developed in
1908 for measuring the strength of detonating agents. Starting
FIGURE 99. Walter 0. Snelling. (Metzger & Son.) Devised the sand test.
Has worked extensively with nitrostarch explosives and has patented many
improvements in military and in mining explosives. Chemist at the U. S.
Bureau of Mines, 1908-1916; Director of Research, Trojan Powder Company,
1917—.
with the thought that true explosives, when subjected to a sufficiently
strong initiating influence, detonate in such manner as
to set free more energy than that which had been applied to
them by the initiating charge, he tested several materials which
failed to be true explosives and, although decomposed by the
detonating agent, did not give off energy enough to continue their
own decomposition and to propagate a detonation wave. Copper
oxalate was the best of the "near explosives" which he tried. He