This work introduces a new method for prediction of melting points of nitroaromatic compounds, including polynitro arenes and polynitro heteroarenes, through their molecular structures. The new model extends earlier work, which was used for carbocyclic nitroaromatic compounds, to estimate melting points of heterocyclic aromatic compounds. Some specific functional groups and structural parameters can be used to improve the predicted values on the basis of the number of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen atoms. The predicted results show that this method gives reliable prediction of melting points with respect to previous work and well-developed group additivity methods for different nitroaromatic explosives with complex molecular structures. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.