Additives for gun propellants to increase impetus and decrease erosion

摘要

Increasing impetus of gun propellants leads generally to increase flame temperature. And with high flame temperature, the propellant is expected to be very erosive. Low flame temperature is obtained with hexogen, but in this special case, the propellant is very erosive. When we consider gun propellants composed of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine, we have found new additives, through thermodynamic computations, which allow to increase impetus of gun propellant and, at the same time, to decrease flame temperature. One of these additives has been tested to obtain a gun propellant with an impetus equivalent to Double Base. The new propellant is twice less erosive according to a test in erosion bomb.