Smokeless Powder - Manufacturing

Manufacturing

This section describes procedures used in the United States. See Cordite for alternative procedures formerly used in the United Kingdom.

The United States Navy manufactured single-base tubular powder for naval artillery at Indian Head, Maryland, beginning in 1900. Similar procedures were used for United States Army production at Picatinny Arsenal beginning in 1907 and for manufacture of smaller grained Improved Military Rifle (IMR) powders after 1914. Short-fiber cotton linter was boiled in a solution of sodium hydroxide to remove vegetable waxes, and then dried before conversion to nitrocellulose by mixing with concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids. Nitrocellulose still resembles fibrous cotton at this point in the manufacturing process, and was typically identified as pyrocellulose because it would spontaneously ignite in air until unreacted acid was removed. The term guncotton was also used; although some references identify guncotton as a more extensively nitrated and refined product used in torpedo and mine warheads prior to use of TNT.

Unreacted acid was removed from pyrocellulose pulp by a multistage draining and water washing process similar to that used in paper mills during production of chemical woodpulp. Pressurized alcohol removed remaining water from drained pyrocellulose prior to mixing with ether and diphenylamine. The mixture was then fed through a press extruding a long turbular cord form to be cut into grains of the desired length.

Alcohol and ether were then evaporated from "green" powder grains to a remaining solvent concentration between 3 percent for rifle powders and 7 percent for large artillery powder grains. Burning rate is inversely proportional to solvent concentration. Grains were coated with electrically conductive graphite to minimize generation of static electricity during subsequent blending. "Lots" containing more than ten tonnes of powder grains were mixed through a tower arrangement of blending hoppers to minimize ballistic differences. Each blended lot was then subjected to testing to determine the correct loading charge for the desired performance.

Military quantities of old smokeless powder were sometimes reworked into new lots of propellants. Through the 1920s Dr. Fred Olsen worked at Picatinny Arsenal experimenting with ways to salvage tons of single-base cannon powder manufactured for World War I. Dr. Olsen was employed by Western Cartridge Company in 1929 and developed a process for manufacturing spherical smokeless powder by 1933. Reworked powder or washed pyrocellulose can be dissolved in ethyl acetate containing small quantities of desired stabilizers and other additives. The resultant syrup, combined with water and surfactants, can be heated and agitated in a pressurized container until the syrup forms an emulsion of small spherical globules of the desired size. Ethyl acetate distills off as pressure is slowly reduced to leave small spheres of nitrocellulose and additives. The spheres can be subsequently modified by adding nitroglycerine to increase energy, flattening between rollers to a uniform minimum dimension, coating with phthalate deterrents to retard ignition, and/or glazing with graphite to improve flow characteristics during blending.