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from a variety of storing locations to be prepared and shipped to the Army Propellant Surveillance Laboratory (APSL) at Picatinny Arsenal. The APSL has been testing samples on an annual basis since the early 1970s. Because of the time it takes to process, prepare, and ship samples to the APSL and the lab’s resulting workload, routine sample test results are usually not available until several months after JMC initiates the stability test. Propellant samples that are identified as priority for testing can be processed quickly on an exception basis. However, it is clear from the volume of material that needs testing that most of the propellant lot samples cannot be treated as priority propellants. Unfortunately, as robust as it is, our propellant surveillance system has not put an end to autoignition accidents. Seven propellant autoignition incidents, some involving 100,000 pounds or more of powder, occurred at Army installations in the 1980s and 1990s. Although it has been 10 years since the last accident, constant vigilance is required. Excess and Obsolete Propellant Stocks With the retirement of some weapon systems and modernization of others, greater reliance on artillery rockets, and the reduction in the size of the force, DOD has found itself with an immense quantity of excess, obsolete, and otherwise unwanted propellant. Much of the propellant is in separate-loading bag charges for Army and Marine Corps artillery. Millions of pounds of Navy gun charges have no purpose since capital ships are no longer equipped with major caliber guns. DOD also has many millions of pounds of excess propellant locked inside cartridge cases of obsolete or unserviceable fixed rounds and mortar projectiles. Along with the active stockpile, the propellant in the demilitarization account (ownership code B5A) requires close surveillance for stability. The Army, as the single manager for class V (ammunition) demilitarization assets, assumes ownership of all ammunition and explosives of each service transferred to the B5A account. Hence, the Army Propellant Stability Program becomes increasingly burdened with providing sample testing of these propellants. Conducting stability surveillance for bulkpackaged propellant, separate-loading propelling charges, and small component charges, such as those for mortar ammunition, is relatively straightforward. Picatinny Arsenal stored master samples of small arms powder as shown in photo in 1922. This facility, which was built in 1920, was destroyed in 1926 by an explosion at the Lake Denmark Navy explosives facility adjacent to Picatinny Arsenal. All buildings at Picatinny Arsenal were destroyed in the explosion. 22 These items are mostly identified on stock records by their propellant lot or index number. Therefore, they are automatically included in the stockpile test portion of the Propellant Stability Program. This is not the case with propellants in fixed or semi-fixed cartridges. The Army considers such propellants so unlikely to autoignite in an uploaded-round configuration that the propellants are not included in the stockpile test program, and the propellants are not closely tracked. Complete rounds, including ammunition for small arms, mortar, and artillery, are identified on stock records by the complete round lot number. When component lot information is listed, it contains lot numbers of items such as the fuse or the ball and tracer but not the propellant the rounds contain. The ammunition data card must be viewed to find the lot number of the propellant that is loaded into these rounds. In a number of cases, especially for small arms cartridges, the loaded propellant lot is not represented in the master sample program at APSL. Thus, much of the propellant loaded into cartridges of all calibers has not been tested for stability since the day it was loaded. For some older cartridges, this can mean the propellant has not been monitored since the 1950s or even earlier. Although the Army considers propellant in fixed rounds as not hazardous, when these rounds are no longer needed and are processed for demilitarization, propellant stability becomes an immediate safety issue. JULY–AUGUST 2008
Generating Bulk Propellant From <strong>Do</strong>wnload With the exception of most small arms ammunition, when fixed rounds are demilitarized, the projectiles are usually pulled apart from the cartridge cases and the propellant inside is emptied into a large container—usually a fiber drum—that will hold from 50 to 100 pounds of propellant. A single demilitarization project may generate hundreds of drums of propellant, usually of many different lot numbers. Suddenly, propellant that has spent its entire life in a configuration that was considered inherently safe from the risk of autoignition is now bulk packaged and stored in a concentrated mass that may be sufficient to allow autoignition to occur. If unstable propellant is unknowingly packed into a bulk container, autoignition could occur within weeks or even days. Once a demilitarization job begins, there may not be time to prepare and ship a sample to the APSL and wait for the test result to know if unsafe material is being retained. Military propellants are becoming increasingly valued as a commercially viable product. Unwanted propellants can be used as an ingredient in the manufacture of industrial blasting gels and slurries, remanufactured as smokeless powder for small arms, or processed into agricultural fertilizers. Even if the installation that is demilitarizing munitions has the capability and necessary environmental permits to burn the propellant (and many do not have them), propellants today have become a marketable commodity that can and should be recycled. To retain the propellant or transfer it to a third party for recycling, the stability of the propellant needs to be determined. Shipping it to APSL is slow and expensive. Establishing a small propellant surveillance laboratory with HPLC capability at the installation level is not considered economically feasible or sustainable. We needed to find a better way. Field-Portable Stability Test Capability In the mid-1990s James Wheeler, then Associate Director for Demilitarization Technology and chair of the demilitarization subgroup of the Joint Ordnance Commanders Group, requested proposals for designing and building a field-portable propellant stability tester. He envisioned an easy-to-use device or kit that could be carried by one person, moved to wherever propellant is located, operated by existing ammunition logistics or surveillance personnel with minimum training, and, most importantly, produce real-time results considered safe and accurate. Jim Wheeler’s vision resulted in the development of two propellant stability field test kits: the ammunition peculiar equipment (APE) 1995 near infrared (NIR) ARMY LOGISTICIAN PROFESSIONAL BULLETIN OF UNITED STATES ARMY LOGISTICS propellant stability analyzer and the thin-layer chromatography (TLC) propellant stability test kit. Both of these test sets are capable of providing qualitative data to determine safe stability levels for the storage, transport, or ownership transfer of nitrocellulose-based propellants. Although RES levels are identified by each test and may be expressed quantitatively in terms of percentage of RES by weight, the test results are used in more of a “go/ no-go” fashion. The “no-go” RES level for both test sets is considerably higher than the level that we use to identify propellants as stability category D (less than 0.20 percent RES) and is higher than the level for minimum stability category C (less than 0.30 percent RES). Using a higher level of stability (between 0.35 percent and 0.45 percent RES) as a cutoff for our field test sets gives us a greater margin of safety. Propellants that test at or below the cutoff levels will be either demilitarized or sent to the APSL for a HPLC test. APE 1995 NIR Propellant Stability Analyzer The APE 1995 is a model of simple operation. Once assembled on a workbench or small tabletop, individual propellant samples can be sequentially analyzed for stability at a rate of no more than 5 to 10 minutes per sample. Since the test is completely nondestructive and requires nothing more than electricity to conduct an analysis, it generates no hazardous chemical or energetic wastes. The APE 1995 was developed for the Army Defense Ammunition Center (DAC) by a division of Science Applications International Corporation, formerly known as Geo-Centers, Inc., at Picatinny Arsenal. The APE 1995 is made up of three major components: a FOSS NIRSystems Spectrometer, Model 5000II; a laptop computer; and an uninterruptible power supply. The operator loads propellant into a removable cell and places the cell into the unit’s transport module. The optical window-side of the cell faces a tungsten-halogen light source as the cell moves through the light. Any differences in the sample, such as color, size, shape, or grain orientation, are averaged. The light is reflected onto detector elements of silicon and lead sulfide. Differences in the reflected light patterns (spectra) indicate varying stabilizer levels. These spectra are compared to predictive chemometric models of the same propellant type that are stored in the computer. The results of these comparisons indicate if the sample’s stabilizer level is at or below the cutoff level that requires more extensive analytical testing. Two of the strongest features of the APE 1995 NIR analyzer are its simplicity of operation and speed of analysis. If samples are made available to the operator, 23
Page 1 and 2: Do Stryker Brigade Combat Teams Nee
Page 3 and 4: A Fond Farewell On 3 June, I turned
Page 5 and 6: MDMP at the SDDC: The Art and Scien
Page 7 and 8: Commander’s Critical Information
Page 9 and 10: Carrier Association Reporting Syste
Page 11 and 12: Peacetime WHNS Validation The USFK
Page 13 and 14: focus on achieving parity with the
Page 15 and 16: Enhanced Logistics Tracking and Mon
Page 17 and 18: MEMS enables logisticians to monito
Page 19 and 20: supply unit or a regional supply un
Page 21 and 22: stifled the incentive to do anythin
Page 23: A technician opens a bag to select
Page 27 and 28: the analysis of up to 30 individual
Page 29 and 30: Heavy and infantry brigade combat t
Page 31 and 32: The Reality of Logistics in an SBCT
Page 33 and 34: Critical Stryker repair parts and t
Page 35 and 36: Successful Implementation of Logist
Page 37 and 38: logisticians, led by company-grade
Page 39 and 40: Combat repair team mechanics provid
Page 41 and 42: Executive Education for Depot and A
Page 43 and 44: units with aspects of all four of t
Page 45 and 46: The eDAQ-lite is a commercial off-t
Page 47 and 48: Commentary A Predictive Diagnostic
Page 49 and 50: ARMY LOGISTICIAN PROFESSIONAL BULLE
Page 51 and 52: capabilities and requirements and c
Page 53 and 54: Army positive control Army procedur
Page 55 and 56: Writing for Army Logistician If you

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