A new method is presented for estimating the gross and net heats of combustion of important classes of energetic compounds including polynitro arene, polynitro heteroarene, acyclic and cyclic nitramine, nitrate ester and nitroaliphatic compounds. Elemental compositions as well as the presence of some specific polar groups and molecular fragments are important parameters in the new model. The novel method can be easily used for any complex organic compounds with at least one nitro, nitramine or nitrate functional groups by which the predictions of their heats of combustion by the available methods are inaccurate or difficult. The predicted results show that this method gives reliable predictions of heats of combustion with respect to group additivity method and computed values based on atom-type electrotopological state indices for several energetic compounds where the models can be applied. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.