Role of oxygen balance on the thermal decomposition behaviour of composite propellants

Differential thermal analysis (DTA) on amonium perchlorate (AP), hydroxy termated polybutadiene (HTPB) based polyurethane (PU) and other composite propellant compositions consisting of AP and PU matrix has been studied. The data show that as the oxygen balance (OB) of the propellant composition decreases, the decomposition rate of AP during the second stage (deflagration exotherm-Exo 11) around 360°C rises very significantly due to the increase in calorific values