Abstract
This study investigates the effect of conditioning temperature of double base propellants on the interior ballistic parameters such as burning gas temperature, barrel wall temperature, pressure and stresses generated in the barrel. Interior ballistic problem was solved employing experimental, numerical and analytical methods with a thermo-mechanical approach. Double base propellants were conditioned at different temperatures (52, 35, 21, 0, -20, -35, -54ºC). The maximum pressure in the barrel and projectile muzzle velocity were measured for all the propellants by conducting shooting tests with a special test barrel using 7.62x51 mm NATO ammunition. Vallier-Heydenreich method was employed to determine the transient pressure distribution along the barrel. The temperature of burnt gases was calculated by using Noble-Abel equation. The heat transfer analysis was done using the commercial software ANSYS to get the transient temperature and stress distributions. Temperature distribution through the barrel wall thickness was validated using a FLIR thermal imager. Radial, circumferential and axial stresses and corresponding equivalent Von Misses stresses were determined numerically and analytically.  The results of the analytical solution for stress analysis validated the finite element solution of interior ballistic problem. Increasing the initial temperature of the propellant resulted in higher temperature and pressure inside the barrel which in turn increased the stresses in the barrel.
Highlights
A weapon system consists of many complex subsystems and designing them requires solving very complex processes
The gas pressure is influenced by many parameters such as propellant properties and climatic conditions
When the propellant is ignited in the combustion chamber thegas temperature increases rapidly and heat is transferred in milliseconds into the barrel which gives rise to high temperatures and stresses in the barrel
Summary
A weapon system consists of many complex subsystems and designing them requires solving very complex processes. Akcay and Yukselen [2] carried out an experimental and a numerical study to calculate the temperature distribution through a barrel. Değirmenci and Dirikolu [9] determined the convection heat transfer coefficient of the gases for calculating the temperature distribution in a barrel by using a thermochemical approach. Değirmenci et al [11] studied the combustion characteristics of double base propellants with various grain sizes and determined the temperatures and stresses in a barrel by using thermo-mechanical approach. A thermo-mechanical approach covering heat transfer and stress analysis was carried out in this study using experimental, numerical and analytical methods. After getting the maximum pressure and muzzle velocity experimentally for various climatic conditions the Vallier-Heydenreich method [7,10] was used to calculate the pressure distribution and the projectile velocity along the barrel. The convection coefficient ha for low speed (~1.0-2.0 m/s) air flow around the barrel was calculated from Eq (8) for cross flow over a cylinder [16]
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