In-situ tensile testing of propellant samples within SEM

A tensile module system placed within a FEI NovaNanoSEM 650 Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) was utilized in this work to conduct in-situ tensile testing of propellant material samples. This tensile module system allows for real-time in-situ SEM analysis of the samples to determine the failure mechanism of the propellant material under tensile force. The test specimens utilized were one quarter sized JANNAF samples (31.75 mm length by 6.34 mm width by 3.175 mm thickness). A test plan was developed with varying the experimental parameters of the tensile module system and studying how they affect the failure mechanism of the samples. The experimental parameters varied included strain rate and sample temperature (-54°C, +21°C, +40°C). Stress-Strain diagrams were recorded during the in-situ tensile tests, and these results were coupled with the in-situ images and videos of the samples captured with SEM analysis. This in-situ tensile module system allows for the study of many other propellant and related materials in the near future.