High-rate experiments on a nitrocellulose/nitroglycerine propellant

The mechanical behaviour of a rubbery nitrocellulose/nitroglycerine double-base propellant was probed at a range of strain rates. The propellant was relatively soft, and inhomogeneous on the millimetre scale, presenting a few experimental difficulties. These difficulties were overcome in a shock experiment using a plate reverberation technique. The resulting information on the shock Hugoniot and release isentrope of the propellant was compared against a hydrocode using a group interaction based material model.