HEATING BLOCKS FOR ACCELERATED AGEING

The heating blocks are used for accelerated (artificial) aging of energetic materials related to chemical stability tests or service life evaluation 

The artificial aging is based on a long-term storage of explosive samples (mainly propellants) at elevated temperature (usually 50 – 90 °C) accelerating decomposition reactions in the samples which would normally take years to occur in detectable extent. After the artificial ageing, changes in chemical stability (stabilizer or antioxidant depletion), sensitivity to external stimuli (impact, friction, electric spark) or in mechanical properties (hardness, compression strength, dynamic modulus, glass transition temperature etc.) are analyzed.

Several models of the heating blocks are available which differ in the number of samples measured. The samples enclosed in glass test tubes are inserted into holes in the heating block. The temperature controller maintains temperature of the heating block homogeneous at predefined value within ± 0.2°C.

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