TOMORROW'S LOVA-PROPELLANTS - POLYMER-BONDED OR NITROCELLULOSE-BASED ?

摘要

The reduction of the sensitiveness of all explosive ammunition components, including propellants, is still one of the main goals of actual developments. One approach upon "LOVA" gun propellants is to use a polymer-bonded matrix highly filled with solid nitramines. In fact, such propellants feature improved properties in particular fields (e.g. chemical stability, cook-off), whereas other problems remain (e.g. sensitiveness upon shaped charges and detonation shock as well as unsatisfactory mechanical properties at lower temperatures or after ageing). An alternative approach is to improve recipe and production processes of nitrocellulose-based propellants. The cook-off behaviour of such propellants, for example, can be increased at least up to the "middle between conventional nitrocellulose- and polymer-bonded propellants" by the implementation of solid nitramines and suitable energetic plasticizers. Similarly, also the sensitiveness upon bullet, fragment and shaped charge jet impact can be reduced. One example is the modified GUDOL formulation as used in the 155 mm Modular Charge System MTLS - this propellant shows at least equivalent if not superior "LOVA"-properties than the polymer-bonded "LOVA propellants" investigated until now, without suffering from the disadvantages described above. The main advantage of "sensitiveness-improved" nitrocellulose based propellants is that other important properties such as ignition and burning behaviour remain "conventional" which allows putting these propellants into service much faster and with much lower risk than products basing on "exotic" formulations.