The Selection of Composite Solid Propellant Process Condition Based on Flow Characteristics of Propellant Slurry

Propellant slurry is kind of non-Newtonian fluid that the characteristics can be affected by process conditions i.e time, temperature, and mixing speed. It is known that composite propellant is made of solid and liquid materials mixed together using a mixer becomes a relatively high-viscosity slurry. Mixing technique of high-viscosity system is challenging because there is no Eddy's turbulence to distribute the components. The suitable technique for this system is laminar mixing technique. Through this technique, it will conduct a research on the propellant slurry's flow characteristics as the mixing time changes. The purpose of this paper was to discover the fluid type and characteristics of propellant slurry that can be used as a reference in selecting the process conditions. The result shows that the propellant slurry behave as shear thinning or pseudoplastic fluid. The optimum process condition that produces good characteristics slurry with values of n = 0.918 and k = 2246.21 dyne.sn/cm2, was at 115 minutes of total mixing time.