Mechanical properties of propellant composite materials reinforced with ammonium perchlorate particles

The purpose of this article is the theoretical interpretation of the experimental data on a continuum Neoprene binder, a glass bead-filled polyurethane binder, and unbound micropulverized ammonium perchlorate particles. After conducting stress relaxation and creep experiments, it is concluded that the large deformation behavior of the filled binder can be described in part in terms of the large deformation behavior of the continuum binder. The time scale of relaxation of stress in the filled binder is much longer than that of the unfilled binder. This has been determined by frictional processes which took place between the filler and the binder as well as among the filler particles. As a result of relaxation and creep studies on ammonium perchlorate (AP) particles, it has been found that the time scale of relaxation is of the same order of magnitude as that of the filler binder. In addition, it is believed that the static indeterminacy of the unbound particles helps to explain much of the strain variation at given stress level that is observed in tensile experiments of composite propellants.