Investigation on the foaming behaviors of NC-based gun propellants

To prepare the porous NC-based (nitrocellulose-based) gun propellants, the batch foaming process of using supercritical CO₂ as the physical blowing agent is used. The solubilities of CO₂ in the single-base propellants and TEGDN (trimethyleneglycol dinitrate) propellants are measured by the gravimetric method, and SEM (scanning electron microscope) is used to observe the morphology of foamed propellants. The result shows that a large amount of CO₂ could be dissolved in NC-based propellants. The experimental results also reveal that the energetic plasticizer TEGDN exerts an important influence on the pore structure. The triaxial tensile failure mechanism for solid-state nucleation is used to explain the nucleation of NC-based propellants in the solid state. Since some specific foaming behaviors of NC-based propellants can not be explained by the failure mechanism, a solid-state nucleation mechanism which revises the triaxial tensile failure mechanism is proposed and discussed.     

Burning characteristics of high density foamed GAP/CL-20 propellants

The monolithic foamed propellants with high densities were prepared by casting and two-step foaming processes. Glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) and isocyanate were used as the binder system and 2,4,6,8,10,12-hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane (HNIW, CL-20) was employed as the energetic component. The newly designed formulation containing 60 % CL-20 produced a force constant of 1077 J/g and low flame temperature of 2817 K. Two foamed propellants with densities of 1.32 g/cm³ and 1.53 g/cm³ were fabricated by a confined foaming process and examined by closed bomb tests. The results revealed that porosity significantly affects burning performance. A size effect on combustion behaviors was observed for the foamed propellant with 5.56 % porosity, and a double-hump progressive dynamic vivacity curve was obtained. At last, the 30 mm gun test was carried out to demonstrate the interior ballistic performance, and the muzzle velocity increased by 120 m/s at the same maximum chamber pressure when monolithic propellant was added in the charge.