Profitable recycling
The process of destruction of obsolete shells can be cost-effective.
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Defense of Russia announced the termination of the disposal of ammunition by the method of detonation. This method, which more precisely should have been called destruction, often resulted in loss of life, great environmental and economic losses, and it should have been banned long ago. Only in the past seven years due to emergency situations in military warehouses, economic damage exceeded 11 billion rubles. The Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences (RARAN) contributed to the solution of this problem. From 2013 onwards, techniques and production facilities of specialized enterprises will be used to get rid of unusable, but still dangerous projectiles. At the same time, issues of realizing the return potential of ammunition stock have become topical.
Prior to the start of the action in Russia, the procedures for the incorporation of a complex of enterprises of the industry of ammunition and special chemistry constituted a single organism, which included both its own and subjects of other sectors of the national economy: metallurgical, timber processing, pulp and paper, chemical and microelectronic. In a word - almost all areas of human knowledge came together in this seemingly simple product.
Since 1933, the domestic industry and the Ministry of Defense have jointly developed technology to provide the Armed Forces at the beginning of the Soviet Union, and now Russia, with this mass weapon class.
All ammunition stocks are dispersed almost unchanged from 1990 over the entire Russian territory. Accumulated in the second half of the last century, the arsenal in its volume remains very impressive. The storage sites contain over 200 thousands of wagons of unusable ammunition (more than four million tons of explosives).
Storage policy
Under current rules, ammunition should be kept in special buried and dug-in storage or on open storage sites. Their transportation is subject to strict regulations.
Using the available statistical materials, test results, as well as practical firing for more than forty years of the operation of the stockpile monitoring system, it is possible to predict the output of ammunition beyond the warranty period of storage and the period of technical suitability.
Ideally, these measures, as well as the careful and owner's attitude towards state property during loading and unloading operations as part of the planned disposal, should ensure the reliability of combat use of ammunition at the 0,99998 level. This is not an ephemeral and calculated value, but a rigid statistical figure that was reached in the USSR at the turn of 1989 – 1990 by design and technological efforts, scrupulously implementing the monitoring of the technical condition of the state ammunition stock in the Ministry of Defense specialized laboratories located in different climatic zones.
It should be emphasized that on the storage conditions of the ammunition to a decisive degree depends on its suitability for combat use.
Dangerous junk
Unfortunately, it can be stated that at present the State Security Certificate is not stored according to the textbook rules. Allowed violations do not allow us to count on the suitability of ammunition for firing, and all the more so since they will ensure the reliability of actions taken by the designers and technologists when fired and at the target.
It can be noted a number of main reasons for the need for emergency disposal of the accumulated dangerous arsenal, requiring the adoption of organizational and technical solutions at the state level.
Today, the state reserve is based on munitions manufactured before 1991. Warranty periods of their storage - 10 – 12 years (for small cartridges weapons - 25 years). Replenishment due to the new production of the last 20 years was practically not carried out - every year less than one percent of the total availability.
The bulk of stocks are ammunition with a shelf life from 11 to 25 years (49 percent) and from 26 to 35 years (38 percent), older than 35 years - nine percent and only four percent less than 10 years ago.
Of the total, the share of the modern arsenal is extremely low and reaches five percent in part of ground artillery, 15 percent cartridges for small arms, and for other types of modern ammunition are absent.
In connection with the withdrawal of troops from neighboring countries and the general reduction of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, military ammunition stocks were deployed at arsenals and bases in violation of safety standards - the available storage areas were overloaded 1,4 – 1,9 times. Work on these facilities for the disposal of elements of obsolete shells are made by unskilled personnel. At the same time, the country has non-loaded production and technological facilities and trained personnel in the field of ammunition and special chemistry.
At the same time, state reserves are progressively aging. In case of failure to take effective organizational and technical measures, the HZB contained in the storage areas for the most part loses its criticality as an engineering and technical system, and above all with regard to explosion and fire safety issues. In addition, the construction of cities has led to the dangerous proximity of residential areas to ammunition storage sites.
All these factors contribute to an increase in the likelihood of man-made disasters in which civilians can suffer.
Return potential
When the munitions reaches the established technical suitability for their further use, one of the following organizational and technical decisions should be made:
sending ammunition for repairs to arsenals and bases of the Ministry of Defense or to industry enterprises;
replacement of components with expired service life with new or received from the cutting of others (repackaging);
disposal of dangerous in circulation units with the purpose of subsequent disposal or destruction.
In any case, this procedure is costly, since it requires the inclusion of work carried out in the task of the state defense order or in the list of activities of the Federal Target Program “Industrial Recycling ...”
It is advisable for greater economic efficiency and efficiency to revise the existing scheme in order to more actively use the return potential of the State Security.
In February 2010 of the year at the RARAN “round table” it was noted that the solution of this problem is a multifaceted task, inextricably linked with three areas of work:
maintaining the proper state of the arsenal stored in the Russian Ministry of Defense, designed to ensure the defense capability of the country;
industrial utilization in order to free the defense ministry from unnecessary ammunition and payload of industry enterprises;
restructuring of stocks, aimed at reducing storage sites and their standard placement.
The State Security also has a significant modernization potential, which is not yet widely used. The enterprises of the industry of ammunition and special chemistry, RARAN, in recent years have developed a number of innovative technologies that allow to improve ammunition on the basis of existing structures and more than double their performance. Calibals and ammunition of guided weapons having the prospect of combat use can be used in the future.
Industry Experience
A part of the State Security will never be required for use for its intended purpose. This is primarily due to the fact that a number of weapons and ammunition to them are outdated and are not included in the list to the states of the units and formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
All of them are subject to industrial disposal. The experience of such activities shows that sectoral enterprises are able to dispose of more than 250 thousand tons of ammunition per year. At the same time, the decommissioning of missiles and ammunition can yield for use in the national economy annually at least 150 thousand tons of ferrous metal, 20 thousand tons of non-ferrous and 30 thousand tons of explosives and gunpowder, and the budget deficit can be filled by transferring secondary resources to the performers. for their deep processing and subsequent sale.
Associated members of RARAN developed technologies for deep processing of secondary resources released during the disposal of ammunition and created industrial automated lines for manufacturing new materials and products from them. The technology of industrial production of nanocarbon and its derivatives from recycled explosive materials has been developed.
Currently, RARAN is actively involved in the implementation of the Federal Target Program “Industrial utilization of weapons and military equipment for 2011 – 2015 years and for the period up to 2020 of the year”, the state customer of which is coordinated by the Ministry of Defense.
The Military Industrial Commission (MIC) under the Russian government decided to combine all work in this area into a complex for implementing the return potential of the state ammunition reserve, designed to solve a multifactorial task: updating the ammunition stock while simultaneously increasing its combat effectiveness, maintaining non-nuclear potential in combat-ready condition, the release of storage from obsolete and excessive arsenal, its disposal. The ultimate goal of these actions is to reduce the state budget expenditures.
In pursuance of the decision of the military-industrial complex from 8 April 2009, RARAN carried out a preliminary technical and economic calculation on the realization of the return potential of the MS, which confirmed that the metal consumption elements — the shell of the projectile and the sleeve: from 80,5 to 92,3 percent — are the highest unit cost. In the case of re-use (reloading) of shells and sleeves shells, the delivery of updated upgraded shots will be cheaper for the state customer at 66 – 78.
In Russia, the regulatory framework for organizing and conducting work on the return potential of ammunition includes two federal laws (No. 135-FZ from July 29 1998 of the year and No. 94-FZ from 21 of July 2005) and two resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation (No. 682 from 12 November 2003 of the year and No. 783 from 17 November 2007 of the year).
State task
The problem of the return potential is an interdepartmental, large-scale and complex organizational and technical task, the execution of which will require the involvement of a significant number of industrial enterprises, landfills, research institutes and design bureaus. Relations between these organizations should be effectively formalized on a long-term contract basis and be accompanied by authoritative control by the federal executive bodies.
RARAN’s qualitative and comprehensive study of the organization of events in the return potential of the State Security Service is due to the fact that it has a high scientific potential and is in fact a major scientific association, with more than a hundred scientific and constructive weapons developers, developers and developers of modern weapons in addition to the three hundred members of the Academy. production organizations of various law enforcement agencies, the defense industry complex and higher schools as associate members.
Under current conditions, RARAN can coordinate the work of defense enterprises, eliminating overlap and duplication, and ensure prompt communication between ordering departments of the Russian Ministry of Defense and other law enforcement agencies at all stages of the life cycle of weapons and military equipment, which would largely contribute to the state defense order, State program of armament and balanced development of the military-industrial complex.
RARAN can take on the role of an objective expert, system integrator and coordinator of comprehensive research aimed at solving innovative tasks of the military-technical policy, including the issues of organizing events of the return potential of the State Security. In addition, within the framework of the existing agreement with the Russian Academy of Sciences, RARAN can ensure the implementation of the results of basic research into applied work to reduce accumulated stocks through their modernization, destruction or industrial disposal.
In terms of their organizational and technical parameters, the realization of the return potential of the State Security Service is considered as an integral part of the task of creating a state stockpile of ammunition and constantly maintaining the non-nuclear potential of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in combat readiness.
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Defense of Russia announced the termination of the disposal of ammunition by the method of detonation. This method, which more precisely should have been called destruction, often resulted in loss of life, great environmental and economic losses, and it should have been banned long ago. Only in the past seven years due to emergency situations in military warehouses, economic damage exceeded 11 billion rubles. The Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences (RARAN) contributed to the solution of this problem. From 2013 onwards, techniques and production facilities of specialized enterprises will be used to get rid of unusable, but still dangerous projectiles. At the same time, issues of realizing the return potential of ammunition stock have become topical.
Prior to the start of the action in Russia, the procedures for the incorporation of a complex of enterprises of the industry of ammunition and special chemistry constituted a single organism, which included both its own and subjects of other sectors of the national economy: metallurgical, timber processing, pulp and paper, chemical and microelectronic. In a word - almost all areas of human knowledge came together in this seemingly simple product.
Since 1933, the domestic industry and the Ministry of Defense have jointly developed technology to provide the Armed Forces at the beginning of the Soviet Union, and now Russia, with this mass weapon class.
All ammunition stocks are dispersed almost unchanged from 1990 over the entire Russian territory. Accumulated in the second half of the last century, the arsenal in its volume remains very impressive. The storage sites contain over 200 thousands of wagons of unusable ammunition (more than four million tons of explosives).
Storage policy
Under current rules, ammunition should be kept in special buried and dug-in storage or on open storage sites. Their transportation is subject to strict regulations.
Using the available statistical materials, test results, as well as practical firing for more than forty years of the operation of the stockpile monitoring system, it is possible to predict the output of ammunition beyond the warranty period of storage and the period of technical suitability.
Ideally, these measures, as well as the careful and owner's attitude towards state property during loading and unloading operations as part of the planned disposal, should ensure the reliability of combat use of ammunition at the 0,99998 level. This is not an ephemeral and calculated value, but a rigid statistical figure that was reached in the USSR at the turn of 1989 – 1990 by design and technological efforts, scrupulously implementing the monitoring of the technical condition of the state ammunition stock in the Ministry of Defense specialized laboratories located in different climatic zones.
It should be emphasized that on the storage conditions of the ammunition to a decisive degree depends on its suitability for combat use.
Dangerous junk
Unfortunately, it can be stated that at present the State Security Certificate is not stored according to the textbook rules. Allowed violations do not allow us to count on the suitability of ammunition for firing, and all the more so since they will ensure the reliability of actions taken by the designers and technologists when fired and at the target.
It can be noted a number of main reasons for the need for emergency disposal of the accumulated dangerous arsenal, requiring the adoption of organizational and technical solutions at the state level.
Today, the state reserve is based on munitions manufactured before 1991. Warranty periods of their storage - 10 – 12 years (for small cartridges weapons - 25 years). Replenishment due to the new production of the last 20 years was practically not carried out - every year less than one percent of the total availability.
The bulk of stocks are ammunition with a shelf life from 11 to 25 years (49 percent) and from 26 to 35 years (38 percent), older than 35 years - nine percent and only four percent less than 10 years ago.
Of the total, the share of the modern arsenal is extremely low and reaches five percent in part of ground artillery, 15 percent cartridges for small arms, and for other types of modern ammunition are absent.
In connection with the withdrawal of troops from neighboring countries and the general reduction of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, military ammunition stocks were deployed at arsenals and bases in violation of safety standards - the available storage areas were overloaded 1,4 – 1,9 times. Work on these facilities for the disposal of elements of obsolete shells are made by unskilled personnel. At the same time, the country has non-loaded production and technological facilities and trained personnel in the field of ammunition and special chemistry.
At the same time, state reserves are progressively aging. In case of failure to take effective organizational and technical measures, the HZB contained in the storage areas for the most part loses its criticality as an engineering and technical system, and above all with regard to explosion and fire safety issues. In addition, the construction of cities has led to the dangerous proximity of residential areas to ammunition storage sites.
All these factors contribute to an increase in the likelihood of man-made disasters in which civilians can suffer.
Return potential
When the munitions reaches the established technical suitability for their further use, one of the following organizational and technical decisions should be made:
In any case, this procedure is costly, since it requires the inclusion of work carried out in the task of the state defense order or in the list of activities of the Federal Target Program “Industrial Recycling ...”
It is advisable for greater economic efficiency and efficiency to revise the existing scheme in order to more actively use the return potential of the State Security.
In February 2010 of the year at the RARAN “round table” it was noted that the solution of this problem is a multifaceted task, inextricably linked with three areas of work:
The State Security also has a significant modernization potential, which is not yet widely used. The enterprises of the industry of ammunition and special chemistry, RARAN, in recent years have developed a number of innovative technologies that allow to improve ammunition on the basis of existing structures and more than double their performance. Calibals and ammunition of guided weapons having the prospect of combat use can be used in the future.
Industry Experience
A part of the State Security will never be required for use for its intended purpose. This is primarily due to the fact that a number of weapons and ammunition to them are outdated and are not included in the list to the states of the units and formations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
All of them are subject to industrial disposal. The experience of such activities shows that sectoral enterprises are able to dispose of more than 250 thousand tons of ammunition per year. At the same time, the decommissioning of missiles and ammunition can yield for use in the national economy annually at least 150 thousand tons of ferrous metal, 20 thousand tons of non-ferrous and 30 thousand tons of explosives and gunpowder, and the budget deficit can be filled by transferring secondary resources to the performers. for their deep processing and subsequent sale.
Associated members of RARAN developed technologies for deep processing of secondary resources released during the disposal of ammunition and created industrial automated lines for manufacturing new materials and products from them. The technology of industrial production of nanocarbon and its derivatives from recycled explosive materials has been developed.
Currently, RARAN is actively involved in the implementation of the Federal Target Program “Industrial utilization of weapons and military equipment for 2011 – 2015 years and for the period up to 2020 of the year”, the state customer of which is coordinated by the Ministry of Defense.
The Military Industrial Commission (MIC) under the Russian government decided to combine all work in this area into a complex for implementing the return potential of the state ammunition reserve, designed to solve a multifactorial task: updating the ammunition stock while simultaneously increasing its combat effectiveness, maintaining non-nuclear potential in combat-ready condition, the release of storage from obsolete and excessive arsenal, its disposal. The ultimate goal of these actions is to reduce the state budget expenditures.
In pursuance of the decision of the military-industrial complex from 8 April 2009, RARAN carried out a preliminary technical and economic calculation on the realization of the return potential of the MS, which confirmed that the metal consumption elements — the shell of the projectile and the sleeve: from 80,5 to 92,3 percent — are the highest unit cost. In the case of re-use (reloading) of shells and sleeves shells, the delivery of updated upgraded shots will be cheaper for the state customer at 66 – 78.
In Russia, the regulatory framework for organizing and conducting work on the return potential of ammunition includes two federal laws (No. 135-FZ from July 29 1998 of the year and No. 94-FZ from 21 of July 2005) and two resolutions of the Government of the Russian Federation (No. 682 from 12 November 2003 of the year and No. 783 from 17 November 2007 of the year).
State task
The problem of the return potential is an interdepartmental, large-scale and complex organizational and technical task, the execution of which will require the involvement of a significant number of industrial enterprises, landfills, research institutes and design bureaus. Relations between these organizations should be effectively formalized on a long-term contract basis and be accompanied by authoritative control by the federal executive bodies.
RARAN’s qualitative and comprehensive study of the organization of events in the return potential of the State Security Service is due to the fact that it has a high scientific potential and is in fact a major scientific association, with more than a hundred scientific and constructive weapons developers, developers and developers of modern weapons in addition to the three hundred members of the Academy. production organizations of various law enforcement agencies, the defense industry complex and higher schools as associate members.
Under current conditions, RARAN can coordinate the work of defense enterprises, eliminating overlap and duplication, and ensure prompt communication between ordering departments of the Russian Ministry of Defense and other law enforcement agencies at all stages of the life cycle of weapons and military equipment, which would largely contribute to the state defense order, State program of armament and balanced development of the military-industrial complex.
RARAN can take on the role of an objective expert, system integrator and coordinator of comprehensive research aimed at solving innovative tasks of the military-technical policy, including the issues of organizing events of the return potential of the State Security. In addition, within the framework of the existing agreement with the Russian Academy of Sciences, RARAN can ensure the implementation of the results of basic research into applied work to reduce accumulated stocks through their modernization, destruction or industrial disposal.
In terms of their organizational and technical parameters, the realization of the return potential of the State Security Service is considered as an integral part of the task of creating a state stockpile of ammunition and constantly maintaining the non-nuclear potential of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in combat readiness.
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