Effect of Curing Agent, Temperature, and Catalyst on Physical-Mechanical Properties of HTPB-Based Highly-filled Composite

Regarding new researches on chemorheology of energetic composites,it is determined that HTPB slurry should have convenient viscosity for ease of casting. In the other word, available time for appropriate casting of energetic composite after curative addition called pot-life. Long pot-life of HTPB binder system is necessarily for good processability and non-defect production of energetic composite grains. In addition to long pot-life, the physical-mechanical properties of HTPB energetic composite are of at most important. In this research, effect of  curative type (structure), casting temperature and the amount of DBTDL as a curing catalyst on chemorheological behavior of HTPB binder system and physical-mechanical  properties of energetic composite were investigated. Toluene diisocyanate (TDI), Isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) and Hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) were selected in order to investigate the role of molecular structure of curing agent on Chemorheology of binder system and its slurry and also on physical-mechanical  properties of energetic composite. Moreover, temperatures of 40, 50 and 60 ˚C, were selected to study the effect of casting temperature on chemorheology. By decreasing each 10˚C of casting temperature, pot-life of binder system (IPDI and TDI) was increased about 10 min. Pot-life of binder system and energetic composite slurry based on IPDI in the presence of 0.005% DBTDL (the optimum content) at similar temperatures, showed the longest pot-life. The elastomer and energetic composite based on IPDI showed the most crosslinking density (CLD) and modulus in comparison to other curing agents with retain of tensile strength and adequate elongation.