Numerical simulation of mesoscopic damage morphology of composite solid propellants

To better simulate the process that mesoscopic damage evolves into macro cracks of solid propellants and the effect of this process on the nonlinear mechanical properties of composite solid propellants, the molecular dynamics method was adopted to create particle packing models of solid propellants. Based on the surface-based cohesive approach, interfacial damages between particles and the bind are created. The finite element method was adopted to compute the packing models with damage and the effect of solid content and interfacial damage on mesoscopic damage morphology and mechanical properties of solid propellant has been researched by comparing the numerical simulation results. The results show that interfacial damage always gathers among a few particles when the solid content is low. With the increasing of solid content, particles involved in the process of interfacial damage aggregation increase more and more. The nonlinear mechanical properties of composite solid propellants, which are affected greatly by interfacial damage between particles and the binder, can not be ignored.