Modeling Dissolution of High Explosive Formulations

A water dissolution model for solid-phase compounds in soil has been developed that is a variation of previous such models. The formulation for this model is presented along with comparison to previous formulations. The model is applied to experiments reported in the literature involving water dissolution of high explosive (HE) compounds and compared with those reported experimental results. This dissolution model is used in the TREECS contaminant fate modeling system that was developed for predicting surface water and groundwater contaminant concentrations resulting from solid-phase contaminant particles deposited in soil. The dissolution model performed well against measured results for a single component HE (TNT), but input adjustments, primarily for initial particle size and solubility, were required for good agreement for multi-component HE formulations. These adjustments are presented.