Flow and dynamic rheological characterization of ethanolamine gel propellant with hybrid gelling agent

In this paper, efforts are made to formulate and prepare ethanolamine gel system, using hybrid of paired gelling agent (PVP+SiO2), that exhibit a measurable yield stress, thixotropic behavior under shear rate ranges of 1 to 20 and 1 to 1000s-1 and a viscoelastic nature. To achieve these goals, multiple rheological experiments (including flow and dynamic studies) are performed. In this paper, results are presented from experiments measuring the apparent viscosity, yield stress, thixotropy, dynamic strain, frequency sweep and tan behaviors, as well as the effects of the test temperature, in the gel systems. The results show that the formulated ethanolamine gel is thixotropic in nature with some yield stress. The apparent viscosity of the gel decreases as the test temperature increases, and the apparent activation energy is lower for the ethanolamine-(PVP+SiO2) gel system. The dynamic rheology study shows that, the choice of hybrid gelling material, the applied frequency and the strain all vitally affect the viscoelastic property of the ethanolamine gel system. In the frequency sweep experiment, the ethanolamine gel to which PVP+SiO2was added behaves like a nearly frequency -independent viscoelastic solid.