A solid rocket motor is one of the critical components of solid missiles, and its life and reliability mostly depend on the mechanical behavior of a composite solid propellant (CSP). Effective mechanical properties are critical material constants to analyze the structural integrity of propellant grain. They are estimated by a numerical method that combines the Voronoi cell finite element method (VCFEM) and the homogenization method in the present paper. The correctness of this combined method has been validated by comparing with a standard finite element method and conventional theoretical models. The effective modulus and the effective Poisson’s ratio of a CSP varying with volume fraction and component material properties are estimated. The result indicates that the variations of the volume fraction of inclusions and the properties of the matrix have obvious influences on the effective mechanical properties of a CSP. The microscopic numerical analysis method proposed in this paper can also be used to provide references for the design and the analysis of other large volume fraction composite materials.
The evaluation of basic mechanical properties are shown to be of importance for the solid composite propellant development and application. The numerical analysis approach termed the three-phase Voronoi cell finite element method, was proposed to evaluate of the interfacial transition zone effect. Numerical results showed that the performance of the effective modulus could be essentially enhanced by increasing the zone thickness. The module of the composite with the inhomogeneous zone was higher than that of the composite with the homogeneous one. The effect of different zones on volume fractions and matrix moduli was also calculated. The Voronoi method can also be helpful for analyzing the characteristic properties of other three-phase composites.
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