The Effect of Single Curing Agents on the Curing Reactions of the HTPB-based Binder System

Abstract

As the hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB)-based binder system is widely applied in many industries, the curing process plays an important role in the final properties of the resulting product containing such a binder system. This study used a viscometer to measure viscosity buildup in the curing process of the binder system with various curing agents under isothermal conditions. Key parameters such as rheological reaction rate constant (kƞ) and pot life of different were measured and calculated. The rheological reaction rate constants of the HTPB-based binder systems included 0.0423 min−1 (MDI), 0.0049 min−1 (HDI-trimer) and 0.0014 min−1 (HMDI). The pot lives of the HTPB-MDI, HTPB-TDI, and HTPB-HDI-trimer were 0.6 h, 3.6 h and 8.1 h, respectively. One interesting finding is that HTPB-HDI-trimer binder, which had the long pot life, exhibited an accelerated trend in the viscosity buildup in the late phase. This feature is of great significance to improving the final properties of the products generated in propellant manufacturing and other fields. The cause of this phenomenon and the curing process of HTPB-HDI-trimer binder system were analyzed and discussed in the present study.