PROPELLANT DEVELOPMENT USING LOCAL SOURCES OF NITRATE COMPOUNDS Suharnoko
University of UNJANI
Abstract
Currently in Indonesia, propellant research is still rarely carried out due to bureaucratic and budgetary problems. To overcome this problem, it is investigated the development of propellant using local ingredients, namely materials available in the market with the aim of being able to make the cost of propellant cheaper and free from bureaucratic problems. Propellants generally consist of the main components of an oxidizing agent and a reducing agent. The purpose of this study was to determine the value of the heat of combustion of local content nitrate compounds, determine the best nitrate compounds and their compositions and the effect of binders on combustion energy. Combustion energy is investigated because it is a basic parameter in determining the next propellant parameter. The research method used is to conduct an experiment to measure the heat of combustion of various mixtures of nitrate compounds, aluminum and polyester resins using a bomb calorimeter. In this study, the oxidizing agents used were potassium nitrate, sodium nitrate and ammonium nitrate, as fuel/reductant was aluminum and polyester binder. All these materials are easily available in the market. The results obtained that the heat of combustion of local content nitrate compounds has the high energy propellant properties, the binder of polyester resin increases the heat of combustion of the propellant, the propellant mixture containing the oxidizing agent ammonium nitrate has the highest heat of combustion with a value of 3788 cal/g. the optimum binder composition in the propellant was 16.7% (w/w). With this propellant research, it is hoped that it will encourage rocket research in Indonesia as a capital for the development of defense equipment to be cheaper.
Keywords: Binder, Oxidizing agent, Propellant, Reducing agent, Heat of Combustion
