History Of Gunpowder

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you would moisten it and
pound it into a cake. Then it was broken into small bits and put into a sieve to be
sifted. The pieces that came through the sieve were different shapes and would
not fit together well enough to pack tightly, so that careful packing of a cannon
was not necessary.
When a long-barreled, rifled cannon came into use, it became necessary
to slow down the burning rate of the gunpowder. Its swift explosive force would
often burst the barrel of the gun, causing the man who fired it to be in almost as
much danger as the man he was attempting to shoot. Captain Rodman of the
United States Army finally developed a gunpowder that was made into grains
shaped into hexagonal prisms. These prisms were large and had several
rounded parallel grooves in them. When the prisms were placed end to end,
these grooves fitted to make a continuous channel. The flame burned outward
from these grooves and inward from the surface of the prisms. This kept ...

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behind an explosion. Explosives occur in several forms: high-order
explosives which detonate, low order explosives, which burn, and primers, which
may do both.
High order explosives detonate. A detonation occurs only in a high order
explosive. Detonations are usually incurred by a shock wave that passes
through a block of the high explosive material. The shock wave breaks apart the
molecular bonds between the atoms of the substance, at a rate approximately
equal to the speed of sound traveling through that material. In a high explosive,
the fuel and oxidizer are chemically bonded, and the shock wave breaks apart
these bonds, and re-combines the two materials ...

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