The description relates to a plant and process for incinerating explosives. In the process, the explosives are burned in a incineration reactor (1) in which the gaseous reaction products (flue gases) thus produced are mixed with fresh or make-up air (5), cooled by this mixing process and then discharged from the incineration reactor (1). In order to improve the thermo-energetic efficiency of the above process, the gas mixture (2) discharged from the incineration reactor is taken to the combustion chamber (3) of a fuel (4) burning plant (11). To this end, the plant for incinerating explosives of the invention comprises an incineration reactor (1) in which the explosives (13) are burned with the generation of flue gas which, as described above, is mixed with fresh or make-up air (5) and then discharged from the incineration reactor (1) via gas pipes. In order to make use of the considerable thermal energy for the gas mixture (2) discharged from the incineration reactor (1), the latter is connected via its exhaust gas pipes to a fuel (4) burning plant (11).
This relates to a furnace that is useful in safely detonating or demilitarizing munitions or explosives, particularly small caliber munitions. The preferred variation includes a series of chambers having a set of runners or tracks passing amongst the various chambers to allow movement of the munitions from chamber to chamber in trays. The first chamber is heated in such a way so that a tray of munitions placed on the runners in this chamber are baked and detonated. After the detonation is generally complete, the tray containing the then-detonated munition fragments is slid through an opening at the end of that heated detonation chamber into a first cooling chamber. Generally, this movement takes place by addition of another tray containing non-detonated munitions into the first chamber. The furnace may also contain a second cooling chamber to assure both that the subject munitions are detonated and to allow then-safe exiting of the completely detonated munitions from the second cooling chamber onto an external extension of the track. The furnace is configured so that the munitions, whether detonated or not, remain in trays which may be slid through an operating unit without substantial hazard. Also included is a scrubber for removing noxious or deleterious components of gases produced by the detonation before it is passed into the atmosphere. Finally, this includes a method of using a chambered furnace to detonate small arms munitions or other explosives.
