Thermal degradation of a composite solid propellant examined by DSC

Abstract

The thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP)/hydroxyl-terminated-polybutadiene (HTPB), the AP/HTPB solid propellant, was studied at different heating rates in dynamic nitrogen atmosphere. The exothermic reaction kinetics was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in non-isothermal conditions. The Arrhenius parameters were estimated according to the Ozawa method. The calculated activation energy was 134.5 kJ mol-1, the pre-exponential factor, A, was 2.04×1010 min-1 and the reaction order for the global composite decomposition was estimated in 0.7 by the kinetic Shimadzu software based on the Ozawa method. The Kissinger method for obtaining the activation energy value was also used for comparison. These results are discussed here.