Brown powder
Brown powder or prismatic powder, sometimes referred as "cocoa powder" due to its color, was a propellant used in large artillery and ship's guns from the 1870s to the 1890s. While similar to
Characteristics
For pure explosive damage, high burn rates or detonation speeds (and accompanying
They became obsolete as a propellant due to the introduction of nitro-explosive propellants such as Poudre B, in France, and later by Nobel's ballistite and, in Britain, by cordite. These new propellants produced less smoke, particularly less black smoke.
Composition
This section needs additional citations for verification. (June 2018) |
The differences in burning rate were achieved by several means. Changes to formulation were altering ingredients relative percentage by weight and using differently processed charcoals for fuel than those of a standard 75:15:10 (potassium nitrate:charcoal:sulfur) black cannon powder.
Typically, sulfur was either not used in brown powders, or sulfur content reduced to around 1% by weight from the usual 10%. The reduction or outright removal of sulfur slowed the burn rate, while replacement of higher molecular weight sulfur dioxide by carbon dioxide or monoxide in the propellant gas mixture gave a higher specific impulse.
Differently processed charcoals were used. Fully carbonized charcoal (mostly composed of elemental carbon) in black powder provides its distinctive black color, while its replacement with an incompletely carbonized, brownish colored charcoal produces a dark brown appearance, hence the names "brown powder" or "cocoa powder". The less carbonized charcoal was more reactive than fully carbonized charcoal, somewhat making up for the easy ignition characteristics usually provided by sulfur. The brown charcoal also helped to produce sturdier grains and replaced sulfur in the role of a binder.
Further modifications of burn rate were achieved by shaping the individual powder grains, often into prismatic shapes such as single-perforated hexagonal or octagonal prisms.[1]
History
Large-grained powder, made in the traditional way as flat sheets but screened to larger sizes, was introduced in the 1850s by
In 1882 the German Rottweil Company developed Prismatic Brown Powder (PBC), which was also adopted by the Royal Navy in 1884. It retarded burning even further by using only 2 percent sulfur and using charcoal made from rye straw that had not been completely charred. It was pressed into prisms with a central hole, similar to the 1.5 inches (38 mm) DuPont Hexagonal.
The French Navy instead developed the Slow Burning Cocoa (SBC) powder, which had grains of about 3.1 millimetres (0.12 in); still only 40% of it burned, the rest was ejected as heavy black smoke.
The first smokeless propellant, the
triggering rapid development of smokeless compounds which replaced brown powder.References
- OCLC 488351130.[page needed]
- ^ OCLC 220001679.
- OCLC 30778237.