New Methods in Assessment and Prediction of Composite Solid Propellant Aging

in order to aging study of the compsite solid propellants, usually the changes in propellant properties during warehousing and storage are measured, and then the shelf life of them estimated. In this regard, by applying the common methods based on mechanical tests, chemical and thermal analysis, the propellant properties due to aging and time lapse are measured. In this paper, first we remark to conventional methods such as stress/strain test, and differential scanning calorimetery, differential thermal analysis and thermogravimetric analysis, and then some of new methods and tests including NMR and IR spectroscopy, determination the amount of dilatation, oxygen consumption, the sensitivity (BAM test), crack growth rate, ballistic properties, and microscopic study are presented that by applying these tests, it is possible to measure the changes of propellant properties over the time and realized the aging of compsite solid propellants and predicting their shelf life