FUNDAMENTALS OF PROPERTY PREDICTION OF COMPOSITE ENERGETIC MATERIALS

In the field of energetic materials, the mixing or blending of various material components into a composite material with certain desired properties is common practice. The compound properties are often not verified experimentally and one has to rely on composite properties derived from so-called property mixing rules. In this study we evaluate these composite properties in relation to details of the pure components. A brief overview of mixing rules, as proposed by Dobratz, Bruggeman, and Poon and Shin, is given. These commonly used mixing rules are applied on different propellant simulants, tetryl and TNT in order to predict the relative permittivity (or dielectric constant). These predictions are discussed and, subsequently, compared to experimental observations.