Study on the characterization of interfacial bonding in the nitramine-filled propellants

The effects of adding bonding agents and precoating the nitramine particles on enhancing the interfacial bonding were studied through the IR analysis, surface (or interface) free energy determination, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, and the tensile properties of model propellant composites using two kinds of interfacial reinforcement techniques were measured. The results show that (1) the interaction between the substituted amides and HMX is hydrogen bond whose effect is better than the one of triethanolamine and polyamine compounds; (2) the wetting properties of one of the bonding agents with HMX are good in both thermodynamics and dynamics; (3) the effect of interfacial bonding depends not only on the degree of surface coating on HMX particles, but also on the properties of the surface coating materials.