Development of Aerosol Monitoring Instrument and Results from Monitoring Emissions of Contained Detonations

To determine the airborne emissions that occur when conventional munitions are destroyed by open burn/open detonation (OB/OD), munitions shots were carried out in a large underground (4650 m3) chamber. Carrying out the tests in a chamber allows the total emissions to be measured, which is not possible in open-air testing. We report here the development of an instrument to measure the time-dependent mass concentration and aerosol size distribution of respirable aerosols (< 10 μ m) from detonations of artillery projectiles in the underground chamber. The instrument incorporates an on-line diluter and real-time cascade impactor for aerosol monitoring. Design, flow modeling, construction details, and results from the instrument are given. Particulate emissions from detonations of twenty four 155 mm artillery projectiles, with a total of 377 lbs net explosive weight, were monitored. Aerosol measurements from the two duplicate tests were very similar. Aerosol mass concentrations showed rapid decreases from 37,0...