High-pressure burning rate studies of solid rocket propellants

Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division 1 Administration Circle, China Lake, California 93555, USA

Abstract

Increased rocket motor performance is a major driver in the development of solid rocket propellant formulations for chemical propulsion systems. The use of increased operating pressure is an option to improve performance potentially without the cost of reformulation. A technique has been developed to obtain burning rate data across a range of pressures from ambient to 345 MPa. The technique combines the use of a low loading density combustion bomb with a high loading density closed bomb technique. A series of nine ammonium perchlorate (AP) based propellants were used to demonstrate the use of the technique, and the results were compared to the neat AP burning rate “barrier”. The effect of plasticizer, oxidizer particle size, catalyst, and binder type were investigated.