First-principles study of high explosive decomposition energetics

Abstract

The mechanism of the gas phase unimolecular decomposition of hexahydro-1,3,5,- trinitro- 1,3,5,-triazine (RDX) has been investigated using first principles gradient corrected density functional theory. Our results show that the dominant reaction channel is the N-NO* bond rupture, which has a barrier of 34.2 kcal/mol at the B- PW9 l/cc-pVDZ level and is 18.3 kcal/mol lower than that of the concerted ring fission to three methylenenitramine molecules. In addition, we have carried out a systematic study of homolytic bond dissociation energies of 14 other high explosives at the B-PW91/D95V level. We find that the correlation between the weakest bond strength and high explosive sensitivity is strong