LOW COST, HIGH PERFORMANCE ROCKET MOTOR TECHNOLOGY

Under this Phase II program, work will continue on the development of the low cost, high perormance rocket motor technology that is currently being researched on a PHASE I SBIR effort. Work completed to date on the Phase I program has demonstrated (1) thefeasibility of preparing beads consisting of aluminum powder encapsulated in polyvinylalcohol, (2) conversion of these beads into porous grain mandrels having the correct bulk density, (3) conversion of these porous grains into solution solid propellantsby infusion of liquid oxidizer based on hydroxylammonium nitrate (HAN) and (4) testing the one pound motors prepared with these propellant grains. Also, a composite case was prepared on a small demonstration grain using chopped glass fiber mat andpolyester resin. This study has also revealed several aspects of this system that need improvement and further development. These consist of optimizing the bead and porous mandrel grain formations, filament wound composite case formation on the mandreland development of a crosslinkable polymer so that propellant tangent modulus can be tailored to avoid slump and creep in large propellant grains. Studies planned for this Phase II program are designed to address these concerns.