Rocket stabilizers

The Army issued its M55 rocket stability report to the Congress. The report recommended that an enhanced stockpile assessment program be initiated to better characterize the state of the M55 rocket in the stockpile. 

Many compounds explode when triggered by a suitable stimulus however, most are either too sensitive or fail to meet cost and production-scale standards, requirements for safety in transportation, and storage stability. Propellants and explosives in large-scale use are based mosdy on a relatively small number of well-proven iagredients. Propellants and explosives for military systems are manufactured ia the United States primarily ia government owned plants where they are also loaded iato munitions. Composite propellants for large rockets are produced mainly by private iadustry, as are small arms propellants for sporting weapons. 

Polymer-based rocket propellants are generally referred to as composite propellants, and often identified by the elastomer used, eg, urethane propellants or carboxy- (CTPB) or hydroxy- (HTPB) terrninated polybutadiene propellants. The cross-linked polymers act as a viscoelastic matrix to provide mechanical strength, and as a fuel to react with the oxidizers present. Ammonium perchlorate and ammonium nitrate are the most common oxidizers used nitramines such as HMX or RDX may be added to react with the fuels and increase the impulse produced. Many other substances may be added including metallic fuels, plasticizers, stabilizers, catalysts, ballistic modifiers, and bonding agents. Typical components are Hsted in Table 1. 

The procedures used for estimating the service life of solid rocket and gun propulsion systems include physical and chemical tests after storage at elevated temperatures under simulated field conditions, modeling and simulation of propellant strains and bond tine characteristics, measurements of stabilizer content, periodic surveillance tests of systems received after storage in the field, and extrapolation of the service life from the detailed data obtained (21—33). 

Electric Rocket up to thousands of 25,000 stabilize some satellites and as... 

The first experiments with the thermal electric engine were conducted in Russia in 1929 by its inventor, Valentin P. Glushko, who later became a world-famous authority in rocket propulsion. For more than forty years, the United States and Russia have devoted many resources to research and development of various kinds of EREs. First tested in space by the Russians in 1964, these engines have found some limited applications in modern space technology. For more than two decades Russian weather and communication satellites have regularly used electric rocket engines for orbital stabilization. The first spacecraft to employ ERE for main propulsion was the American asteroid exploration probe Deep Space 1, launched in 1998. The performance of... 

Moorite Propellant. A series of rocket proplnts submitted to PicArsn for evaluation in 1949. They consisted of an oxidizer (such as K perchlorate) 70, and a cured rubber hydrocarbon plus accelerators, 30%. Although the examined samples proved to possess desirable props for rocket proplnt use, their thermal stability was poor and their press exponent undesirably high. It was concluded that further work was required on the method of prepn to eliminate these defects... 

Electrical continuity techniques have been used to determine the extent of deposition with standing time (Ref 9). New techniques have also been developed to stabilize PC used for coating propint grains in rocket motors. These... 

A Small but important daSS of fOi mUlatiOnS comprises the Composite Solid Rocket Propellants. Composites typically contain a major amount of an oxidizer such as AP or HMX, a metal powder such as Al, a binder which is one or another type of rubber (or double-base), and up to a dozen trace ingredients such as catalysts, stabilizers, etc. There are literally hundreds of formulations, all to a degree similar and the choice comes down to specific missions, economics, and special requirements Loading of End Items. The blends and formulations described above may be loaded into their hardware in the plant where they are made, or they may be shipped to another plant for Load/... 

Recent trends in rocket propint development and most of the recent developments in SP are for rocket and not gun proplnts, were directed toward the attainment of higher energy systems (actually higher specific impulse). Unfortunately, the use of exotic components presents grave stability problems which are yet to be overcome. Some energetic plasticizers have been developed and in some applications specific impulse has been increased substantially by substituting Be for Al. Much of this subject remains classified... 

M55 rockets pose the greatest storage risk because they contain approximately 20 pounds of M28 propellant, a double-base propellant composed of nitroglycerine, nitrocellulose, plasticizers, a bum-rate modifier, and a stabilizer. The exact composition is given in Table 1-4. The propellant slowly decomposes exother-... 

Uses Rocket fuel formulations stabilizer for organic peroxide fuel additives absorbent for acid gases plant control agent photography in organic synthesis. 

Table 10.7 shows the physicochemical properties of the crystalHne materials used as oxidizers. Potassium and sodium are combined with nitrate or perchlorate to form stabilized crystalline oxidizers. Metal oxides are formed as their combustion products. On the other hand, ammonium ions are combined with nitrate or perchlorate to form stabilized crystalline oxidizers such as NH4NO3 and NH4CIO4 without metal atoms. When these oxidizers are decomposed, no solid products are formed. As discussed in Section 10.1.1, for the oxidizers used for propulsion, such as in propellants for rockets and guns, the molecular mass of the combustion products needs to be as low as possible. 

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