Pressure and Temperature Dependency of ADN-based Solid Rocket Propellants

Solid rocket propellants based on ammonium dinitramide (ADN) as oxidizer and glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) as binder are suitable candidates for future propellants with good performance characteristics and no hazardous impact to the environment relating to the burning products. The comparison with the actual state of the art solid propellant, based on hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) and ammonium perchlorate (AP), reveals that ADN-based propellants, especially in combination with an energetic binder, result in non-suitable burning rates (r) and pressure sensitivities (n) for civil applications. In a previous work Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden, propellant formulations of ADN/GAP, ADN/HTPB and AP/GAP, AP/HTPB were produced and investigated to comprehend the differences in the combustion mechanism. In this work a detailed characterization of the pressure- and temperature-depended burning behavior was done in a Crawford-type bomb (2 - 200 MPa; -40 °C - 50 °C).For keeping the number of experiments low and to gather empirical knowledge, design of experiment was used.