William R

A model including detailed gas phase chemistry previously applied to nitrate ester and nitramine solid propellants and their major ingredients has been successfully applied to the pure energetic ingredient nitroguanidine and to M30, a triple base propellant which contains nitroguanidine. This is the first modeling of either based on a detailed gas phase mechanism. Computed burning rates are in reasonable agreement with experiment. Predicted flame structures indicate the unusual result that no dark zone forms even at low pressure (0.5 MPa), in agreement with experiment; detailed chemical analysis conclusively indicates the lack of a dark zone is due to rapid gas phase reactions of NH and NH2 species with NO. Our expansion of the universe of ingredients successfully modeled with our approach bodes well for its use in formulation science and its transfer, as reduced versions, into interior ballistics weapons development codes.