Pyrotechnic delays are used in many applications where a time delay is required between the initiating item and its final output. Pyrotechnic delays are advantageous for many applications; including grenades, parachute cutters, and aircrew escape systems, because they are cheaper than electronic time delays and do not require an outside power source to function. Current pyrotechnic delay formulations (T-10, manganese, zirconium-nickel, and tungsten) contain toxic ingredients such as hexavalent chromium, perchlorates, and lead which require significant resources for environmental remediation and are hazardous to human health. C70 detonators contain a lead styphnate initiation charge, a lead azide transfer charge, and an hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine output charge, which, according to Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, are considered highly toxic and hazardous materials. Additionally, traditional delay manufacturing methods generate significant solid and liquid hazardous waste streams, which are considered to be energy intensive, and have large lot rejection rates. Each lot of delay composition typically range from 2.5-3 kg of pyrotechnic material when manufactured using traditional production techniques.

Demonstrating an environmentally benign pyrotechnic delay composition is anticipated to not only reduce the environmental impact of the delay when compared to the legacy M213 fuze, but also, improve the manufacturing and device performance reliability. This effort focused on the use of an environmentally benign delay formulation that was developed under SERDP projects WP-2518 and WP-2519 for use in smoke and fragment grenade delay fuzes. That effort has generated two environmentally benign pyrotechnic delay formulations with acceptable burn times.

The objective of this demonstration was to evaluate the effectiveness of 1) the green pyrotechnic delay compositions as a replacement for the legacy Z-1 delay composition, 2) the molecular interstitial composite and Copper(I) 5-nitrotetrazolate (DBX-1) based primer for the legacy lead styphnate based M42 primer, and 3) DBX-1 as the replacement of lead styphnate and lead azide in the legacy C70 detonator. This effort demonstrated that the proposed material met the requirements of the M42, M213, C70, and M67 performance specifications. Successfully demonstrating that a green firing train can meet the performance requirements of the widely used M67 hand grenade.

Currently it is unknown if there are any issues associated with scaling up the batch quantities to meet production level quantities. The LabRAM I has been used extensively for mixing the delay composition in 75-gram batches with excellent results. This has also been tested in the LabRAM II-H in larger 300-gram batch quantities with similar results.

Publications:

1. 45th International Pyrotechnics Society manuscript and oral presentation; Effect of Percussion Primer Pressure Output on Performance of Pyrotechnic Time Delay Systems July 2022 [1]
2. Joint Army-Navy-NASA-Air Force (JANNAF) manuscript and oral presentation; Demonstration of a Fully Green M213 Fuze System for M67 Hand Grenade, May 2023 [2]