Proceedings of 36th Joint Propulsion Conference, Huntsville, AL, July 2000.
Barry T. Neyer, Senior Member AIAA
John T. Adams
Terry L. Stoutenborough
Current Address
Barry T. Neyer
Excelitas Technologies
1100 Vanguard Blvd
Miamisburg, OH 45342
(937) 865-5586
(937) 865-5170 (Fax)
Barry.Neyer@Excelitas.com
Most aerospace components are required to have a minimal leak rate to ensure that contamination, such as water vapor, does not enter the explosive cavity. Energetic components and systems are typically required to have a leak rate of less than 5·10-6 standard cubic centimeters of gas at a pressure of one atmosphere (5·10-6 STD cm3/sec).
The aerospace community typically uses the leak test requirements specified in MIL-STD-1576, which is based on MIL-STD-202. However, the DOD community uses MIL-STD-331, and the Electronics community uses MIL-STD-883. Although each of these tests is designed to measure the same thing, the test methods differ substantially. Moreover, many of the assumptions used to derive the equations in the test methods may not apply to the typical components used in the aerospace community. This paper discusses leak test requirements in general, details the differences between the test methods, discusses the applicability of leak test requirements to typical aerospace components, and gives suggestions for generalizing the leak test method.