A study on the effect of additives on temperature sensitivity in compositepropellants

The hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) based composite propellants wit hout any metal additive and with varying concentration of metal additives s uch as iron oxide, copperchromite, strontium carbonate and lithium fluoride have been cast and cured. These propellants have been characterized for de nsity and calorimetric value (cal-val). Further, their temperature sensitiv ity has also been determined from the burning rates calculated from the P-t profiles obtained on static evaluation of Ballistic Evaluation Motor (BEM) after conditioning at different temperatures. The data indicate that iron oxide is best to enhance burning rates and at the same time, to reduce temp erature sensitivity.