Advanced FRP Application for Solid Rocket Motor Technology

Cost effective design of modern Solid Rocket Motor pushes towards selection of reinforced plastics for structural components. In the paper a survey of trade-off studies for material selection is presented, aimed both at small tactical rocket and at large space vehicle booster. Economic issues are discussed as well. A selection of widely used technologies for composite Solid Rocket Motor (SRM) cases is reported. Few requirements for FRP material are typical for rocket motor applications and not shared to different industrial environment. A specific section is devoted to the material characterization practices both at CIRA and Fiat A vio. Accurate process design is another key issue to the reduction of development risks and to the optimisation of manufacturing costs. In the last years CIRA and Fiat Avio made many efforts, in the frame of a co-operative research activity, in order to develop reliable process modelisation tools aimed to a suitable technology definition which affords thermokinetic and thermostructural modelisation topics and fibre winding optimisation. The models resulted in an integrated software simulation system that is briefly described in the paper.