Ab-initio prediction of impact sensitivity

An important goal of the energetic materials community has been to develop a first-principles technique for the prediction of sensitivity. Here we discuss some previous work and propose alternative approaches. Using basic parameters we have attempted to obtain correlations with experimental drop weight impact data for a wide range of explosives. We compare and contrast the methods and draw conclusions with regard to the most important factors. Finally, we use the best correlations to make predictions for novel, as yet un-synthesised, poly-nitrogen materials.