| Abstract: | The work presented here demonstrates the first phases of a newly-proposed gun propellant formulation process that will minimize life-cycle costs through science-based design. This new approach to gun propellant formulation proposes maximal use of modeling and simulation in the earliest phases of the developmental cycle to screen candidate formulations, resulting in the elimination of probable poor performers and the identification of the most promising candidates for further study and testing. The screening and identification of promising candidate formulations is demonstrated in the study presented here under the assumption of a specific weapon platform and user requirements. The process of selecting a propellant for the assumed gun system application has been distilled into a series of measurable steps leading from a set of candidate materials, through logical and numerical filters, to a shorter list of energetic materials demonstrated as viable choices for the weapon platform. Environmental filtering and performance modeling are used to screen propellants through a well-defined sequence of tests designed to weed out materials that do not meet standards in terms of safety, energy, or manufacturability. Because much of the testing is performed by computer modeling, the gun systems and energetic materials need not be present (nor even existent) in order to be described and matched against performance requirements for future applications. The calculations presented here demonstrate that utilizing computer models in the early developmental stages of the formulation process rather than physical testing produces enormous savings in labor, material, and environmental costs, along with a tremendous reduction in the time required to select a "best candidate" propellant. |
