• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.17 no.2
• /
• pp.57-62
• /
• 2013

A crack in a solid propellant increases the area of burning surface, which leads to excessive burning that causes motor failure. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate fracture toughness of solid propellants. However, it is very difficult to measure fracture toughness of solid propellants because of the nonlinear mechanical behavior. In this study, evaluation of fracture toughness on a solid propellant was carried out under the assumption that the solid propellant is a linear viscoelastic material. Actual displacements from fracture toughness tests using CCT specimens were converted into pseudo-elastic displacements by using stress relaxation characteristics and fracture toughness was evaluated using ASTM E399 standard. Also, effects of test temperature and speed on the fracture toughness were considered.