Aging Study of HTPB Based Composite Solid Propellants

The aging is one of the main parameters used in the evaluation of propellants service life in rocket and missile systems. Today, HTPB based composite solid propellants have become the most effective propellants in solid rocket motors around the word. Aging may originate from different types of processes: chemical, mechanical, and physical. In this paper, some of the most important factors affecting the aging and the methods for their determination were investigated. The most common method of evaluating propellant aging is accelerated aging tests which it’s performed to obtain information about aging characteristics in a relatively short period. The main chemical methods that are recently used to determine the aging of composite solid propellants is the determination of soluble component of binder polymer propellant structure. Also, the most important physical tests that can be investigated are the stress - strain, stress - relaxation, creep tests, and dynamic - mechanical tests.