Relative Erosivity of Nitramine Gun Propellants with Thermoplastic/ Elastomer Binder Systems.

摘要

Current and future gun propellant development programs are necessarily moving toward compositions possessing ever-higher impetus and flame temperature. A common goal is impetus above 1250 J/g, resulting in flame temperature above 3400 K. Propellants showing the most promise are composite in nature, consisting of an energetic solid in an energetic thermoplastic elastomer (ETPE). Oxidizers are typically CL-20 or RDX. Normally, such systems could be expected to provide some gun tube erosion problems. Erosivity characterizations have been conducted in a blowout chamber, which has been fabricated from the breech and chamber of a 37 mm gun. Relative erosivity is determined by observing the mean mass loss from a contoured nozzle resulting from a series of test firings. In general, the RDX/ETPE and CL-20/ETPE propellants that have been evaluated in this program are considerably less erosive than conventional propellants of similar flame temperature.