Smokeless rocket propellant

Uses Has limited use due its manufacturing process, but may show increased use when better methods of preparation are developed. It can be used with satisfaction in military smokeless powders, and smokeless rocket propellants. ... 

Oxidizers. The characteristics of the oxidizer affect the baUistic and mechanical properties of a composite propellant as well as the processibihty. Oxidizers are selected to provide the best combination of available oxygen, high density, low heat of formation, and maximum gas volume in reaction with binders. Increases in oxidizer content increase the density, the adiabatic flame temperature, and the specific impulse of a propellant up to a maximum. The most commonly used inorganic oxidizer in both composite and nitroceUulose-based rocket propellant is ammonium perchlorate. The primary combustion products of an ammonium perchlorate propellant and a polymeric binder containing C, H, and O are CO2, H2, O2, and HCl. Ammonium nitrate has been used in slow burning propellants, and where a smokeless exhaust is requited. Nitramines such as RDX and HMX have also been used where maximum energy is essential. 

Similar to nitramine composite propellants and TAGN composite propellants, AN composite propellants produce halogen-free combustion products and thus represent smokeless propellants. However, their ballistic properties are inferior to those of other composite propellants the burning rate is too low and the pressure exponent is too high to permit fabrication of rocket propellant grains. In addition, the mechanical properties of AN composite propellants vary with temperature due to the phase transitions of AN particles. 

Blackpowder is still used in sq ll rockets (e.g. signal or rescue rockets for carrying the rope from shore to ship or vice versa). Its limited application is due to the fact that blackpowder gives a very low specific impulse ls=from 40 to 80 sec, which is much lower than that of modern composite propellants and smokeless rocket powders which give a specific impulse of 180-200 sec. 

The disadvantages of smokeless powder as a rocket propellant, the difficulty in manufacturing very large charges and the high operating expenses led to a search for explosives based upon another principle plastomers or elastomers with an oxygen carrier. 

Uses Nitroglycerin (or glyceryltrinitrate) is a pale yellow, oily liquid also available in the form of rhombic crystals. It is highly explosive. It is used in combination with ethylene glycol dinitrite in the manufacture of dynamites, explosives, rocket propellants, smokeless powders, and guncotton. 

High explosives may be class d according to their physical properties as powdery, meltable, semi-meltable and plastic. Propellants may be grouped on the basis of chemical composition into gun powder and similar mixtures, nitrocellulose (single base) and nitroglycerine (double base) powders, With respect to their uses and some properties they are divided into black powder, smokeless and flashless powders, and rocket propellants. 

Nitroglycerine, which is still of primary importance in commercial explosives, smokeless powders and rocket propellants ... 

MP 32,305-7(1950) (Phenyl-/3-naphthylamine as a stabilizer for smokeless propellants) 3a)Degering(1950),199-221 292-321 4)11. Maisner, USP 2, 712,989(1955) CA 49,14325-6(1955) (An organic amine was proposed as an addn to nitroparaffin-gel rocket propellants to make them expl, eg, a rocket propellant consisting of MeNO, blended with 10-50% NC and contg Cr acetylacetonate up to 3% by wi became an expl after incorporating some amin ... 

Nitration of p-nitroaniline (15b), or reacting picric acid with phosphorus pentachloride, yields trinitrochlorobenzene, which on amination affords 2,4,6-trinitroaniline, the explosive picramide. Phosgenation of /V-ethylaniline (26) gives a substituted urea used as a stabilizer for explosives. Diphenylamine (8) is used as a stabilizer, for nitrocellulose explosives as well as for celluloid, and also as a solid rocket propellant. Ethylaniline 26 is employed in the manufacture of centralite, a stabilizer in smokeless powder. Other uses for 15b, the largest volume nitroaniline, include in the production of dyes, antioxidants and pharmaceuticals. 

Nitroglycerine is one of the most important and most frequently used components of explosive materials together with nitroglycol, it is the major component of gelatinous industrial explosives. In combination with nitrocellulose and stabilizers, it is the principal component of powders, gun propellants and smokeless solid rocket propellants (- double base propellants). 

Use Explosives, pyrotechnics, analytical chemistry, etching and engraving agent, smokeless rocket and jet propellant. 

Use Stabilizer for nitrocellulose-based smokeless powder and in solid rocket propellants. 

Photographic film was once made from nitroeellulose, a plastic made from wood or cotton, without the use of hydrocarbons. Nitrocellulose film is strong and dimensionally stable. It made an excellent substrate for the photographic emulsion, but it is extremely flammable. Nitrocellulose in a slightly different form is used to make smokeless gun and rocket propellant. A replacement polyester material with the same dimensional stability has been produced from hydrocarbons. The polyester film has little... 

Hazardous Decomp. Prods. Heated to decomp., burns and emits very toxic fumes of NOx NFPA Health 1, Flammability 1, Reactivity 0 Uses Stabilizer for nitrocellulose-based smokeless powd., in solid rocket propellants plasticizer... 

These double-base propellants are best known as smokeless propellants used in guns and rockets. Two major ingredients are used to formulate the double-base propellant grains NG and NG. As covered in Section 4.2.2, NG is a nitrate ester characterized by -O-NO2 groups, and is known as a high explosive. Since NG is a liquid at room temperature, it is absorbed by NG and serves to gelatinize the latter to form... 

Physical mixtures of nitropolymers are known as smokeless propellants, as used in rockets and guns. The -O-NO2 chemical bonds contained within the nitropolymer-sact as oxidizer components and the remaining hydrocarbon structures act as fuel components. The major combustion products are CO2, H2O, Nj, and CO, and additional small amounts of radicals such as OH, H, and CH are also formed. These products are fundamentally smokeless without solid particles. 

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