Analysis of the aging process of double-base propellants without an organic stabilizer

Abstract

This paper describes studying the chemistry of the double-base propellant aging process of the grains from the START motor of the Soviet ground-to-air missile system, S-125 'Neva'. This system was introduced in the armament of the Army of Serbia, in the early seventies of the last century and it is still in use. In order to determine the extent of degradation of propellants and then assess their chemical stability, ten methods were used. Modern analytical methods confirmed that typical organic propellant stabilizers are not present in the tested propellants. Therefore, the chemical stability of this propellant had to be additionally tested by the methods which are not based on measuring the consumption of stabilizers such as: microcalorimetry method of heat flux measuring, vacuum stability test, heat storage test at 100ºC, methyl violet test at 120ºC and mass loss test.

Keywords

• double-based rocket propellant
• chemical stability
• aging process
• microcalorimetry
• liquid chromatography
• heat flux
• stabilizer
• ground-to-air missile