A new experimental way for the monitoring of the real/equivalent in-service-time of double base rocket propellant by coupling VST and PCA

Abstract

The assessment of the real in-service-time (RIST) and the equivalent in-service-time (EIST) of double base rocket propellants (DBRPs) is of utmost importance for the safe storage and use of weapon systems as well as the efficiency of the accelerated aging plans. In this work, four DBRPs with similar chemical composition and different natural aging have been artificially aged at T = 338.65 K for 4 months with sampling every 30 days. The unaged and artificially aged samples have been investigated by vacuum stability test (VST) at five isothermal temperatures (T = 333.15 K, 343.15 K, 353.15 K, 363.15 K, and 373.15 K). The volume of the evolved gases in VST was found to decrease with natural/artificial aging. Furthermore, the VST data were treated and subjected to principal component analysis (PCA). The results showed excellent discrimination of the DBRP samples according to their stability thermal properties. Most of the variance was described by the first principal component (PC1) whose scores were linearly correlated with the natural aging durations when PCA is applied on VST data obtained at T = 363.15 K. In light of the obtained results, a new experimental way for the estimation of the real/equivalent IST was proposed, which takes into account the impact of the natural aging of the sample. The approach predicts successfully the RIST of two similar DBRPs with a relative deviation of less than 2%. At the specific heating temperature T = 338.65 K, the developed model provides more conceivable EIST values, with asymptotic behavior against artificial aging duration evolution, thus overcoming some shortcomings of the common generalized van’t Hoff formula (GvH).