The Effect of Nonlinearity on Determined Parameters of Gun Propellant Burn Rate Models: The Ballistic Compensation Effect

摘要

The pressure dependent linear burning velocity of gun propellants is described by burn rate models, e.g. Vieille's law with prefactor and pressure exponent . To determine the burn rate parameters closed vessel experiments are conducted, the resulting p(t) curves are analysed and and are determined by a curve fitting procedure. It is shown that due to the nonlinearity of the pressure dependence in Vieille's law the objective function exhibits a topography which leads to an almost linear correlation between determined burn rate parameters and . This is mathematically equivalent to the so called kinetic compensation effect known from thermal analysis. Therefore this linear correlation is called the ballistic compensation effect by the author. If this effect is taken into account different burn rate measurements that are seemingly non compatible can be unified.