Application of Closed Vessel Technique for the Evaluation of Burning Rates of Propellants at Low Pressures

Abstract

Closed vessel technique has been well established for the evaluation of burning characteristics of gun, mortar and small arms propellants at high pressures of about 750 kg/cm/sup 2/ - 3000 kg/cm/sup 2/ propellants in the pressure range up to about 200 kg/cm/sup 2/ (19.6 MPa). One of the modern trends in armaments technology is development of short range, high efficiency rockets and rocket assisted projectiles where the chamber pressure are in the range of 100 kg/cm/sup 2/ - 800 kg/cm/sup 2/ (9.8 MPa-78.5 MPa). An extension of the closed vessel technique is now presented for the measurement of rates of burning of propellants in this pressure range and a few experimental results on some conventional propellants are given.