Product quality and quality assessment of propellant binder by spectroscopical methods

Modern solid propellants are highly filled composite materials. The essential ingredients of a composite propellant are a crosslinked binder, a polymer and an oxidizer. Furthermore, most propellant formulations contain a stabilizer, ballistic modifiers, high energy fuel additives, a wetting agent, plasticizers and other additives to adjust physical properties. In this case the crosslinking density of the polyurethane binder plays an important role in consideration of the performance and quality of the propellant material. Modern spectroscopical methods like IR- and NMR-Spectroscopy can be used to monitor the crosslinking reaction.