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Volumes and Sound Speeds of Two Gun Propellants at high pressure
Author(s) -
Costantino M.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
propellants, explosives, pyrotechnics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.56
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1521-4087
pISSN - 0721-3115
DOI - 10.1002/prep.19840090105
Subject(s) - propellant , porosity , compressibility , materials science , speed of sound , quasistatic process , volume (thermodynamics) , hydrostatic equilibrium , bulk modulus , compression (physics) , matrix (chemical analysis) , composite material , modulus , hydrostatic pressure , hydrostatic stress , shear modulus , mechanics , structural engineering , thermodynamics , engineering , physics , aerospace engineering , quantum mechanics , finite element method
Gun propellants are subjected to a variety of high stress states during the ballistic cycle. Attempts by constitutive modelers to describe the response of the propellant during the cycle are hampered by an almost complete lack of well‐characterized experimental data at high pressures. We present quasistatic, hydrostatic pressure‐volume, and compression and shear‐wave‐speed data on two formulations of a low porosity propellant. The hydrostat shows three distinct regions at pressures to 200 MPa. Below about 60 MPa, the response is elastic, with an effective compressibility controlled by the porosity; from ∼60 Mpa to 140 MPa the porous matrix fails and the material softens as the porosity distribution is crushed; above ∼140 MPa, the bulk modulus continues to increase to the value for the matrix. Both the hydrostat and sound speed data show significant time‐dependent effects with characteristic times of ∼10 3 s and > 10 4 s.