Rocket Propulsion Elements, 9th Edition

CHAPTER 13SOLID PROPELLANTS

This is the second of four chapters dealing with solid propellant rocket motors. Here we describe several common solid rocket propellants, their principal categories, ingredients, hazards, manufacturing processes, and quality control. We also discuss liners and insulators, propellants for igniters, propellant tailoring, and propellants for gas generators.

Thermochemical analyses are needed to characterize the performance of any given propellant and specific methods are described in Chapter 5. Such analyses provide values for the effective average molecular mass, combustion temperature, average specific heat ratio, and characteristic velocity—these are all functions of propellant composition and chamber pressure. Specific impulses can also be computed for given nozzle configurations and exhaust conditions.

The term solid propellant has several connotations, including: (1) the rubbery or plastic‐like mixture of oxidizer, fuel, and other ingredients that have been processed (including curing) and constitute the finished grain; (2) the processed but uncured product; (3) a single ingredient, such as the fuel or the oxidizer. In this field, acronyms and chemical symbols are used indiscriminately as abbreviations for propellant and ingredient names; only some of these will be shown in this chapter.

13.1 CLASSIFICATION

Historically, the early rocket motor propellants used to be grouped into two classes: double‐base (DB)¹ propellants were the first production ...