Compact Sensor for Non-Destructive Propellant Mechanical Property Evaluation

Assessing the ageing of solid rocket motors is extremely important to all branches of the DoD.  While it is known that key mechanical parameters such as modulus and relaxation modulus are key indicators of solid rocket motor health in term of ageing, the equipment to characterize and track these properties is bulky and complicated to use.   For the past two decades, Tanner Research has been working with all types of energetics along with custom mechatronics (robots and sensor & actuators system).  The company has developed a variety of energetics health monitoring techniques for the Air Force, Missile Defense Agency, and the Army.  For this topic, Tanner Research proposes to develop a compact robotic mechanical tester that can traverse the full length of a variety of rocket motor bores to determine changes in mechanical stiffness (modulus) and plasticity as well as relaxation modulus and other dynamic mechanical characteristics.  In the proposed Phase II effort, Tanner will leverage the basic design and test data obtained in the Phase I and develop and demonstrate a complete “automated” SRM Propellant Health monitoring probe system for monitoring and accessing rocket motor health and ageing.