
27Physical Foundation of Interior Ballistics
The balancing of a chemical reaction determines what the molecular composition of the
combustion products will be and furthermore helps us to quantify the amount of energy
absorbed or released. If energy is absorbed in a chemical reaction, in other words, if we
had to add energy to force the reaction to completion, the reaction is said to be endother-
mic. If heat is liberated, the reaction is said to be exothermic [15].
A reaction can be said to be theoretically or stoichiometrically balanced if the reaction
goes to completion and there is no excess oxygen in the products [1]. We shall dene a
comp ...