The explosive power or strength of an energetic material shows its capacity for doing useful work. This work reviews recent developments for prediction of power of energetic compounds. A new user‐friendly computer code is also introduced to predict the relative power of a desired energetic compound as compared to 2,4,6‐trinitrotoluene (TNT). It is based on the best available methods, which can be used for different types of energetic compounds including nitroaromatics, nitroaliphatics, nitramines, and nitrate esters. The computed relative powers are consistent with the measured data for some new materials containing complex molecular structures.

Impact sensitivity is an important safety parameter for the assessment of the hazards of working with new energetic compounds including ionic molecular energetic materials. This paper introduces two novel simple correlations to assess the impact sensitivity of quaternary ammonium-based energetic ionic liquids, which are based on the elemental composition of cations and anions divided by the molecular weight of a desired ionic liquid as well as the contribution of specific cations and anions. For 72 ionic molecular systems as a training set, the root mean square (rms) deviations of predictions for these models relative to experiment are 11 J and 6 J, respectively. The reliability of the models has also been tested for a further three ionic compounds containing complex structures, which give rms deviations of 12 J and 6 J, respectively, with respect to the measured data. The results of the current study indicate that the accuracy of this novel method for the prediction of the impact sensitivity of quaternary ammonium-based energetic ionic liquids is not necessarily enhanced by greater complexity.