OFFICIAL As shown above, the ability to safely extend sleep times in reactive ground has increased through innovations in testing and formulation. The new method moves from a paradigm of testing longer than the desired sleep time to one of calibration and prediction, grounded in scientific understanding of inhibitor chemistry. It is evident from the trends in Figure 1 that over decades increases in sleep time were achieved through progressively longer tests. The trend was inverted in 2025 based on the application of this work to provide a credible safety case for long sleep times using a standard test. 2. Experimental Methods The research program was divided into two complementary streams: (1) a reactive ground testing stream to develop a new qualification test protocol for long sleep times, and (2) a product development stream to formulate an explosive with sufficient inhibition for 90day sleep time in reactive ground. This paper focuses on the testing stream, which in turn involved several components: isothermal laboratory tests (based on the standard reactive ground test but modified for extended duration and variable inhibitor levels) and Accelerated Rate Calorimetry (ARC) experiments for kinetic analysis. Figure 5: Test Duration vs Sleep Time Approved. Orica’s test duration increased with sleep time until 2025 where the trend inverts due the application of this work.
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