A research on polyether glycol replaced

APCP rocket propellant

Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1879, 030001 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5000463
Published Online: 31 August 2017

Tianyou Lou, Chun Jia Bao, and Yiyang Wang

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AIP Conference Proceedings 1879, 030001 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5000463 1879, 030001

© 2017 Author(s).
 A Research on Polyether Glycol Replaced APCP Rocket
Propellant

Tianyou Lou1, a), ChunJia Bao2, b) and Yiyang Wang 3, c)

1
Hangzhou Foreign Language School, Liuhe Road No.309, Xihu District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
2
Zhejiang Hangzhou High School Jiangdong Road No. 1958, Jianggan District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang ,China
3
Zhejiang Fuyang High School, No.1 Guanyili , Fuyang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang ,China
a)
frfounder@foxmail.com
b)
1690809117@qq.com
c)
1048571152@qq.com

Abstract. Ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) is a modern solid rocket propellant used in rocket
vehicles. It differs from many traditional solid rocket propellants by the nature of how it is processed. APCP is cast into
shape, as opposed to powder pressing it with black powder. This provides manufacturing regularity and repeatability,
which are necessary requirements for use in the aerospace industry.
For traditional APCP, ingredients normally used are ammonium peroxide, aluminum, Hydroxyl-terminated
polybutadiene(HTPB), curing agency and other additives, the greatest disadvantage is that the fuel is too expensive.
According to the price we collected in our country, a single kilogram of this fuel will cost 200 Yuan, which is about 35
dollars, for a fan who may use tons of the fuel in a single year, it definitely is a great deal of money. For this reason, we
invented a new kind of APCP fuel. Changing adhesive agency from cross-linked htpb to cross linked polyether glycol
gives a similar specific thrust, density and mechanical property while costs a lower price.

INTRODUCTION
It is well known that there is a great amount of people making model rockets, and one of the best propellants
they can find is APCP (Ammonium perchlorate composite propellant). It is a composite propellant, in which
aluminum serves as an energy source (reducing agent), ammonium perchlorate as an oxidation agent and gas source
while HTPB acts as an adhesive. HTPB is about 15%-20% in mass of the propellant.
The adhesive agent provides the propellant its mechanical property, it affects the volume percentage of the cavity
caused by trapped air, which greatly influences the speed the propellant burns and the density of it. From the aspect
of mechanical property, HTPB is a very high performing adhesive, propellant made from it has a high modulus and
is able to carry out a higher specific impulse (even higher than the propellant this paper is introducing) with the
same aluminum percentage, it also has a higher density than other types of propellants.[1]
However, the problem with HTPB is its expensiveness and the highly professional equipment one needs so we
found it important to have a substitution. Polyether consequently fits this need. This chemical is a mixture of highly
repeated links of ether attached with –NHCOO- at both ends, which has a similar crosslink structure and similar
solidification mechanism as HTPB, the experiments proved it a good substitution for HTPB.
We then created a standard formula APCP out of both HTPB and 310-polyether the ingredient is 65% of AP in
60-100mesh, 10% of Al in 300 mesh with 25% of the liquid part.
Testing polyether standard formula APCP’s elongation at break and young’s modulus under a temperature of
80degre simulates the environment it will face under normal condition. The elongation at break is 18.6% while it of
traditional APCP is12%. The elastic modulus is 53mPa while it of traditional APCP is 59mPa. The polyether has a
55% higher elongation at break and only 11.3% less elastic modulus then that of traditional APCP. The difference in

3rd International Conference on Chemical Materials and Process (ICCMP 2017)

AIP Conf. Proc. 1879, 030001-1–030001-5; doi: 10.1063/1.5000463
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1559-1/$30.00

030001-1
elastic modulus is small enough to be neglected, and the elongation at breaks clearly shows that it has a better
mechanical property.
The team has tried making the propellant without vacuum system or with a higher solid component. The
polyether APCP shows higher performance then tradition APCP. Comparing the density of the propellants, and
calculating a rate of density loss versus ideal density, polyether propellant can be made without a vacuum system to
have a 37.4% lower cavity rate then traditional APCP. Also, it is able to make 82% solid APCP with polyether but
75% of which with HTPB.[2]

EXPERIMENTS

Solidification Test
The polyether we used is “polyether #310”, the curing agency we used is MDI
In order to find the best (curing agency/ polyether) rate we did an experiment to test the time needed for different
proportions of mixture to solidify.
We executed 10 experiments, use rate of 1/3.5, 1/4, 1/4.5, 1/5, 1/6
Every set of the mixtures had a total weight of 10g, and solidify under a 293.15K temperature. The condition of
solidification needed was relatively a smaller temperature, and relatively shorter solidification efficiency. 10g of the
mixture was placed into a thermostat which kept the inner temperature at 293.15K. We recorded the data with an
infrared thermometer and a timer, we checked the experiment every hour.
Pictures are shown in Figure 1- Figure 2
The experiment showed that the ratio of 1/4 suited the need the most.

FIGURE 1. solidification experiment

FIGURE 2. note for the experiment

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 According to TABLE 1 the experiment shows that 1/5 is the best combination. It took 37hours to get solidified
and the temperature rose for a maximum less than 1K.

TABLE 1. A table of relation between time needed for solidification, change in temp. with the ratio of adhesive and
curing agency
1/3 1/3.5 1/4 1/4.5 1/5 1/6
Time t/h 12 15 20 27 37 52
Temp. T/K 5 4 2 1 0 0

time/h

0.143
0.167
0.182
0.2
0.222
0.25

GRAPH 1 A graph of relation between time needed for

solidification, change in temp. with the ratio of adhesive and curing
agency
APCP producing
First created a mixture of the liquid part of APCP except the curing agency, in a traditional one we used an
ingredient: (Bayer HTPB and) and a polyether with an ingredient of 65% of AP in 100 mesh, 10% of Al of 300
mesh, 25% of adhesives.[3]
In the experiment, we found that it was very important to heat the entire solid ingredients to get the moisture out
in order to prevent the boiling of the water under the high vacuum process, also an increase in water led to a need of
increasing the curing agency.
To make the APCP we used:
Electronic balance
Vacuum jar with a blander in it
Vacuum pump
AP in 100 mesh
Al in 300 mesh
Adhesive with its additive
Container
Steps:
Put in all liquid parts including curing agency (TDI and MDI) into the blender, let the pressure in side reach
0.01pa, blend for 3 minutes, then release the pressure.
Add all Al powder in to the liquid part, vacuum the chamber and blend for 5 minutes, release it, and vacuum it
again and blend another 15 minutes. —— P1
Add 1/3 of AP powder and repeat P1 process.

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 Add rest of the AP powder and vacuum the chamber, blend for 10 minutes, then release the pressure. Vacuum
the chamber again and blend for another 10 minutes.
Extract the liquid form fuel and use a funnel for the propellant mold (what we used is a pvc tube) under vacuum
conditions.[4]

Microscope Inspection
Fuel is cut into pieces and viewed under a microscope with a magnification of 30, we could see that the fuel was
mixed well and did not contain small pores. (Figure 3)

FIGURE 3. the microscopic check for the propellant

Propellant Testing
Using an YMC-1 young’s modulus tester to test the modulus of the propellant and using the same equipment we
tested the elongation to break.
The conclusion was that the young’s modulus of the polyether APCP propellant was 53mPa, the HTPB one was
59mPa, the elongation to break of polyether APCP was 18.6%, the HTPB one was 12%. But all the data was not
very useful for a working engine, the modulus and elongation at break would change as the temperature changed, we
did not have the equipment to model the working environment with high temperature and pressure.
The standard ignition test gave a similar specific impulse as normal APCP, which was 230s.

PRINCIPLE OF CHOOSE

Adhesive Difference
In many situations, polyester had the same effect as polyether having to force the temperature, but polyester
would be not suitable for the adhesive in APCP. Theoretical speaking, polyester should be perfectly suitable for
rocket propellant due to its good mechanical property. However in reality, it was not working, in one aspect, the
reason is that though the polyester elastomer have a relatively high modulus, but it have a much lower elongation to
break, and which means under the high pressure within a rocket engine, it will be easier to break, and cause higher
combustion rate which can lead to explosion. Also according to the experiment we carried out, the propellant made
polyester as the adhesive contained much more small pores then polyether contains.

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 Curing Agency Difference
There were many differences in curing agency between rocket propellant making and other industries. In the
experiment, the curing agency was very different.
Polyether polyurethane (PU) is made after polyhydric alcohol carries out a condensation reaction; terminal hydroxyl
carries out an electrophilic addition with a isocyanate˄TDI-100 from Bayer ˅.
Polyester PU was made when esterification had been carried out between carboxylic acid and polyhydric alcohol
and then further reacted through a di-ethanol bridging group with isocyanate. The curing agent normally used in the
industry is organic amine, for example, ethidene diamine, this kind of curing agent can solidify polyether very fast
but while producing a great amount of heat. It was absolutely efficient for a simple elastomer for economical use,
but this was not suitable for APCP.
APCP contains ammonium peroxide, which made the fluid APCP a strongly oxydic environment. In such an
environment, the amido will easily be decomposed and ammonium gas may appear and the by-product, heat, will
make the bubble even bigger. These pores in the completed propellant would cause a severe explosion. Thus, we
needed to use a more gentle curing agency that did not react with the ammonium peroxide, which was the TDI we
chose.

COST
From the current market data in China, the price of AP is 50yuan/500g, Al is 12yuan/500g, qualified HTPB is
400yuan/200g, and qualified polyether #310 is 30yuan/200g.
Making a 1000g fuel requires 25% of adhesive which is 250g, for HTPB, it will cost 500yuan on adhesive, for
polyether #310, it cost 45yuan
For 1000g of propellant
Cost :
HTPB APCP: 65+2.4+500=567.4(yuan)
Polyether APCP: 65+2.4+45=112.4(yuan)
The price is 80.2% less than using HTPB.

CONCLUSION
With all the experiment’s data shown, for amateurs, the propellant was as effective as the traditional APCP
propellant, they had similar specific impulses, density and mechanical properties while the price was only 19.8
percent of the original price. This kind of APCP is very suitable for amateurs and has a room for further
development to be used as a propellant in space exploration projects.

REFERENCE
1. Jinlan Tang, Peijin Liu, Songqi Hu and Xiang Lv “principle of solid propellant rocket engine” chapter 3
˄National Defence Industry Press 2013.2˅
2. www.wikipedia.org
3. https://bbs.makertime.org
4. kechuang.org

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