ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the fundamentals of explosives technology and the properties of some common explosives. Detection-related aspects and their availability, performance, and any feature that might lead a terrorist to choose one over another are also discussed in this chapter. Chemical explosives, with proper initiation, undergo violent decomposition to produce heat, gas, and rapid expansion of matter, and their practical effect depends on the speed at which the decomposition takes place, as well as on the amount of gas and heat released. A chemical reaction which proceeds through the material at a rate less than or equal to the speed of sound in the unreacted material is known as a deflagration. A chemical reaction that proceeds through the material at a rate greater than the speed of sound in the unreacted material is known as a detonation.
