The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives - Sciencemadness Dot Org

DETONATORS 419
in the amount of sand pulverized showed that the TNT had
detonated. After this point had been reached, further increases
in the amount of fulminate caused only slight increases in the
amount of sand pulverized. The magnitude of the effects, and the
definiteness of the results, are shown by the following data of
Storm and Cope. 18
WEIGHT OF SAND (GRAMS) PULVERIZED FINER
THAN 30-MESH BY REENFORCED DETONATOR CON-
TAINING 0.40 GRAM TNT AND A PRIMING
CH\RGF.< (GRAMS) OF
PRIMARY EXPLOSIVE 0 3000 02800 02600 02500 0 2400 02300
3420 34 70 33 00 13 55 12.60
3150
Mercury fulminate
3000
3270
3200
33 55 3445 3295 13.90
3405 3467 1320
90/10 Fulminate-chlorate
3455 34 07
3442 35 07
34.70 33.80
34 40 1680
3460
80/20 Fulminate-chlorate
3460
33 80
3485
Fulminate owes its success as an initiating agent primarily to
the fact that it explodes easily from fire—and it catches the fire
more readily than do lead azide and many another primary explosive—to
the fact that it quickly attains its full velocity of
detonation within a very short length of material, and probably
also to the fact that the heavy mercury atom which it contains
enables it to deliver an especially powerful blow. Its maximum
velocity of detonation is much lower than tha"t of TNT and similar
substances, and its power to initiate the detonation of high
explosives is correspondingly less. Wohlcr 19 in 1900 patented
detonators in which a main charge of TNT or other nitro compound
is initiated by a relatively small charge of fulminate.
ls Ibid, p. 55.
19 Brit. Pat. 21,065 (1900). For an account of Wolilei'b theory of initiation
see Z. ges. Schiess- u. SprengstoJJtv., 6, 253 (1911) and Z. angcio. Chcm, 2
1111, 2089 (1911).