Improvement of Composite Propellants Energy Using Explosive Materials

Abstract

Composite propellants are energetic materials have ability to ignite, burn fast and cause several simultaneous exothermic chemical reactions which produce huge amounts of gases under high pressures and temperatures which can spread spontaneously. 1n the present study, the explosive material hexogen (Cyclo tri-methylene tri-nitramine) was used to improve the performance properties of composite propellants, especially the specific impulse. For several formulations of hexogen at different added percentages, the specific impulse was calculated using thermodynamic calculations program of composite propellants. The results given were compared with those formulations not including hexogen. It was seen that; hexogen caused a significant positive effect in the specific impulse. Accordingly, the energy of composite propellant was improved positively in the samples containing hexogen till 40% of the oxidizer ratio. Also, it was noticed that the specific impulse began to decrease gradually for the oxidizers containing more than 40% of hexogen which caused in a decreasing of composite propellant energy. Finally, it was concluded that, the use of some amount of explosive materials like hexogen can improve composite propellants energy successfully.