Journal of Energetic Materials

A way to increase the specific impulse of solid propellants is using the energetic components as energetic binder or energetic plasticizer in the propellant formulations. Hydroxy terminated poly butadiene (HTPB) is the one of pre-polymer which was specifically synthesized for its use as a propellant. Incorporating of PEG into HTPB chains lead to increasing the polarity of binder and maybe prevent to the polar plasticizer migration. In this study, in the first step, elastomers of HTPB/PEG blend are prepared and their mechanical and thermal properties are investigated. Then, the propellants based-on HTPB/PEG blend are prepared and their mechanical properties are compared to the propellants based-on HTPB binder. Incorporating of PEG into binder, lead to increasing the stress and elongation of the propellant and also, influences its oxygen balance. In the solid propellant based-on 75% solid loading, theoretical and semi experience specific impulse was increased by the addition of BuNENA up to 7.9s and 6.9s.