In the last several decades a great deal of work, both experimental and theoretical, has been performed on explosives and their effects. There did not exist in any language a satisfactory, comprehensive compilation presenting a unified, self-consistent, theoretically competent treatment of this material. Also, a large number of interesting contributions, which have now been declassified and should provide valuable information, was comparatively inaccessible to the average scientist and engineer.
This Handbook presents a unified treatment of the important open literature in which is included not only articles in professional journals but also the available military reports. While the Handbook is not a comprehensive treatise on explosives, it does discuss at length topic areas that are of greatest value in an exposition of the principles of explosive behavior, and thus provides a readily accessible collection of important theoretical and experimental results on explosives and explosive effects.