Effects of Thermal Damage on Impact Response Characteristics of High-Energy Propellants

Thermal damage due to microstructure changes will occur in propellants under thermal stimulation. It can significantly affect the sensitization, combustion, and other properties of the propellant, which, in turn, affects the impact safety of the solid propellant rocket engine. A new component which uniformly heats the sample was designed to conduct the Lagrange test and EFP impact test at different temperatures. The thermal decomposition and damage characteristics of the propellant during the heating process were quantitatively analyzed. Additionally, the effects of ambient temperature on impact initiation and detonation growth of the high-energy propellant were elucidated at a mesoscopic level. The results showed that the porosity of the specimen increased by 0.89% under the thermomechanical mechanism, which was mainly characterized by interfacial de-bonding between the AP and the binder. The increase in thermal damage changed the hot spot reaction rate and significantly affected the growth process of propellant impact initiation. A method was proposed to systematically calibrate the reaction rate model for the propellant at different temperatures. The theoretical model parameters of the high-energy propellant at two typical temperatures were calibrated in this way. The critical shell thicknesses computed using LS-DYNA, which, for 20 and 70 °C, were obtained as 15 and 20 mm, respectively.