Research Advances and Prospective on Tribological Properties of Energetic Materials

Energetic materials, which can be generally simplified as EMs, have been widely applied in many cutting-edge areas such as the defense weaponry and its systems as well as the solid propellants for aerospace field. During their manufacturing and in-service process such as production, pressing, manufacturing, usage, and storage of energetic materials, the tribological properties of energetic materials interfaces have gradually become one of the most predominated common issues that is affecting their safety and stability during their manufacturing and in-service processes. In special, the safety of energetical material under various frictional stimulations conditions has become an extreme issue that is affecting the safety of mechanical equipment and operate engineers. Therefore, in order to improve the safety and stability of energetic materials under various frictional stimulation conditions, it is of critical importance to scientifically and comprehensively understand the common tribological behaviors of energetic materials, for instance, the friction behavior of energetic materials interfaces, the formation of friction-induced hot-spots at of energetic materials interfaces, the sensitivity to frictional stimulation of energetic materials, and other problems of energetic materials interfaces under different frictional stimulation conditions. It should be noted that those fundamental questions about the tribological behaviors of energetic materials have gradually become one of the important topics in the fundamental and application research in the research field of energetic materials during various manufacturing and in-service processes. Aiming to answer those important questions, first of all, this review paper analyzes the key tribological problems of energetic materials during their manufacturing and in-service processes involving the production, pressing, manufacturing and usage process, and expounds the research connotation of tribological behaviors of energetic materials. On basis of this, the latest research progresses of related research method and fundamental theory about the tribological behaviors of energetic materials in recent years are reviewed. To be more specific, in addition to the commonly used methods and equipment for both the fundamental and application of tribological properties of energetic materials, the fundamental mechanism of tribological behavior of energetic materials under various conditions are discussed, for instance, as the most important frictional parameter, the evolution and its mechanism of friction coefficient of energetic materials interfaces are discussed, the formation and its mechanism of the formation of friction-induced hot-spots at energetic materials interfaces are discussed, and as most important parameter during actual applications, how to reduce frictional sensitivity of energetic materials by various treatments are also discussed. Finally, some future research prospectives are proposed based on the existing research progress and development trend of research on tribological behaviors of energetic materials.