VERY HIGH BURNING RATE COMBUSTION AND FORMULATIONS RESEARCH

VHBR (VERY HIGH BURN RATE) PROPELLANTS ARE RELATIVELY NEW FORMULATIONS THAT INCORPORATE HIVELITE, A BURN RATE MODIFIER MADE BY TELEDYNE MCCORMICK SELPH. THIS CLASS OF PROPELLANT EXHIBITS APPARENT BURN RATE FROM ONE TO SEVERAL HUNDRED METERS PER SECOND, WHICH IS SUITABLE FOR TRAVELING CHARGE APPLICATIONS. WHILE RESEARCH CONDUCTED SINCE THE LATE 1970S HAS SUCCESSFULLY DEMONSTRATED THE HIGH COMBUSTION RATE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS PROPELLANT, IT HAS ALSO BEEN SHOWN THAT COMBUSTION MAY NOT OCCUR AS IT DOES IN CONVENTIONAL PROPELLANT WHERE LINEAR BURN RATE IS AN APPROPRIATE COMBUSTION DESCRIPTOR. CONFUSING DATA FROM EARLY COMBUSTION EXPERIMENTS AND MORE RECENT RESULTS INDICATE THAT THE HIVELITE MAY BURN FIRST, LEAVING A POROUS MATRIX WHICH THEN DECONSOLIDATES AND BURNS RAPIDLY. THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSED EFFORT IS TO FORMULATE AND CONDUCT A RESEARCH PROGRAM TO INVESTIGATE VHBR PROPELLANT PHENOMENOLOGY. THE PROGRAM, CONSISTS OF INNOVATIVE DIAGNOSTIC TESTING, PHYSICAL PROPERTY EVALUATION, FORMULATION WORK AND ANALYSIS AIMED AT DETERMINING VHBR PROPELLANT COMBUSTION MECHANISMS, AND SUBSEQUENTLY FORMULATION AND DESIGN CRITERIA FOR ADVANCED BALLISTIC APPLICATIONS.