Combustion of Gas-Permeable Gun Propellants

Abstract

Foamed propellants prepared by supercritical fluid foaming show considerably high burning rates due to their porous structures. To further investigate combustion of foamed propellants, quenched combustion experiments and closed-vessel experiments were carried out, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was also used to observe their porous morphology. The SEM images show that foamed propellant grains exhibit a porous core and compact skin. The research results show that the porous core is first burned out and the compact skin is burned out at the later burning stage. The results also demonstrate that pore size exerts an important effect on the burning behaviors of foamed propellants.

Influence of Carbon Nanofibers on Thermal and Mechanical Properties of NC‐TEGDN‐RDX Triple‐Base Gun Propellants

“…The gun propellants are visco-elastic, and their properties are temperature dependent, and may become extremely brittle at low temperatures [10]. The propellant grains are subjected to very high pressures and pressure gradients for very short times during ignition and combustion in a gun chamber [11][12][13]. This situation can result in mechanical breakup of the propellant grains which would lead to a large increase of surface area and so to anomalously high pressurization rates and burning or hazardous breech blow [14].…”