LX-17-1 Stockpile Returned Material Lot Comparison

Many different lots of LX-17 have been produced over the years. Two varieties of LX-17, LX-17-0 and LX-17-1, have at one point or another been a part of the Livermore stockpile systems. LX-17-0 was made with dry-aminated TATB whereas LX-17-1 was made with wet-aminated TATB. Both versions have the same TATB to Kel-F 800 mass ratio of 92.5%/7.5%. Both kinds of LX-17 were formulated at Holston during the late 1970s or early to mid-1980s and were certified to have met the necessary specifications that cover the purity, particle size range, explosive to binder ratio, etc. In recent years, Trevor Willy and others have performed a detailed evaluation of solid parts made from each of the LX-17 lots manufactured at Holston. Using the Advanced Light Source at LBNL, Willey and his colleagues radiographed many samples from isostatic pressings using the same scanning conditions. In their investigation they identified that even though the bulk composition can be the same, there may exist a large spread in how smoothly the TATB and binder were distributed within the radiographed volume of different lots of material.1 Overall, the dry-aminated TATB-based material, LX-17-0, had a smooth TATB and binder distribution, whereas the wet-aminated TATB-based LX-17-1 showedmore » a wide range of binder distributions. The results for five different LX-17-1 lots are shown in Figure 1. The wide variation in material distribution has raised the question about whether or not this sort variability will cause significant differences in mechanical behavior.« less