Microstructure and Damage Analysis of Solid Propellant

Abstract

According to a Micro-CT based tomogram, the particles in solid propellant was considered as ellipses. A numerical method called random ellipses packing algorithm was used to model the 2D microstructure of the solid propellant. Then, a bilinear cohesive law, which relates the stress tractions and displacement jumps, was adopted to simulate the debonding process of particle/binder interfaces, and a representative volume element of the propellant microstructure under uniaxial tension was analyzed. The results indicate that the debonding of particle/binder interfaces is an important reason to nonlinear macroscopic constitutive responses, and the larger particles are debonding earlier than that of small ones.