Effect of aluminum/organic fluoride composite on the combustion properties of aluminized HTPB propellants

To investigate the effect of organic fluoride on the combustion properties of aluminized HTPB solid propellant, nano and micro aluminum/organic fluoride (OF) composites (nmAl/OF and μmAl/OF) were fabricated by ball milling method. The nmAl/OF and μmAl/OF as composite additives, were added to HTPB propellant instead of aluminum powder. The effect of composite additives on the combustion performance of propellant was investigated. The nmAl/OF and μmAl/OF composites and condensed phase combustion products of propellant were analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM) and particle size analysis. The results show that the nmAl/OF and μmAl/OF composite have different combination states. The heat of detonation of propellants reduces by about 2% after adding OF, nmAl/OF and μmAl/OF. The formula contained nmAl/OF has the lowest burning rate of 6.28 mm/s under the pressure of 3 MPa, and compared with the original formulation, the burning rate pressure exponent of two propellants that contained OF and μmAl/OF decreases by about 20%. The particle size (D₅₀) of condensed phase combustion product of the formulation with nmAl/OF reduces by about 47% compared with the original formulation.