Mechanical Properties of Gel Propellants with Nanoparticles

Gel propellants provide rocket propulsion systems of high specific impulse, low sensitivity, and low vulnerability in combination with the capability to control the thrust, that is, variation of thrust and thrust cutoff. The characterization of the mechanical properties is essential for the development of gel propellant formulations and for the design of an applicable propulsion system. In this contribution the mechanical properties of a gel propellant consisting of nitromethane as fuel and nanoparticles of silicon dioxide as gelling agent are examined. The experiments were conducted under steady state shear flow and oscillatory shear. The nitromethane/silicon dioxide gels exhibit non-Newtonian flow behavior over the whole concentration range examined. The viscoelastic properties are typically gel-like in that the storage and the loss moduli are both independent of frequency.