Study on Perormance and Application of Blends of GAPE and NC

Abstract

The energetic materials based on nitrocellulose (NC) become brittle at low temperature because of the semi-stiff chains it contains. GAP-based energetic thermoplastic elastomers (GAPE) is a kind of copolymer with flexible block, which can be used to toughen NC. A series of blends of NC and GAPE formula and NC/GAPE based propellant with RDX specimens were prepared. The density and the mechanical properties of mixture binders films were examined. The burning characteristics of NC/GAPE based propellant with RDX were investigated by closed bomb test. The results show that the NC/GAPE blends exhibit good miscibility and outperform pure NC at low temperature. The density and the tensile strength gradually decrease with the mass fraction of GAPE increasing. The NC/GAPE blends exhibit two transition temperatures, the difference between which reduces to minimum at the GAPE/NC ratio of 40:60.Furthermore, the results of closed bomb test suggest that the NC/GAPE/RDX propellants burn normally.