Twice as powerful as TNT, made in city explosive to be a game changer

Nagpur: An explosive with double the lethality of the time tested trinitrotoluene (TNT) has been developed indigenously in the private sector. Dubbed the most powerful conventional explosive available in the world, it’s expected to be a game changer for the country’s fire power.
The explosive can be filled in artillery shells, aerial bombs and conventional warheads.Last week, it was granted a compliance certificate by the Navy under the defence export promotion scheme. Two other explosives developed by the private firm also got certificates, and were found to be more potent than the formulations used for filling ammunition currently.

Explosives which are used in conventional or non-nuclear warheads are measured in TNT equivalence. Normally, this ranges from 1.25 to 1.30 times the strength of TNT. HEMEX, the explosive used in the warheads of Brahmos missiles, has 1.5 times TNT equivalence.
SEBEX 2, the formulation developed by Nagpur’s Solar Group has 2.01 equivalence, exceeds HEMEX.
SEBEX 2 was granted a compliance certificate by the Director General Naval Armament and Inspection (DGNAI). The certificate relates to the defence export promotion scheme.
The company is also in the process of coming up with an explosive that is 2.3 times powerful. It is expected to be developed in next six months. The defence business is carried out by Economic Explosives Limited (EEL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Solar Group.
Another explosive, SITBEX-1 too was presented before the DGNAI. It was found to be roughly 30% more powerful than the conventional RDX/TNT composition during test firing.
SITBEX belongs to the class of solid thermobaric explosives. If the traditional bombs focus on a single powerful detonation, the thermobaric explosives have a prolonged blast and generate intense heat. Such ammunition is useful against fortified positions of the enemy.
The SITBEX formulation, which was also granted a certificate of compliance by the DGNAI under the export promotion scheme, is said to be an ideal choice for air bombs, missiles and other warhead systems.
The third explosive SIMEX 4 developed by the company for being used in Naval warheads, was found to have an explosion intensity of 110 kilobars. SIMEX is an ‘insensitive’ explosive, which is named for being safe during storage and transport.