To study the influence of burning rate inhibitors on the combustion performance of four-component HTPB propel-lants,two typical burning rate inhibitors(quaternary ammonium salt and adamantane derivative)were introduced into the alu-minum based composite particles with core-shell structure Al@HMX and AP@Al,and the site of action of inhibitors was set to be inside HMX particles or on the surface of AP to prepare two types of Al-based core-shell composites(Al/A@HMX,Al/B@HMX,AP@Al/A and AP@Al/B).Results show that the heat of explosion of solid propellants can be reduced by these burning rate inhibitors,whereas the propellants containing Al@HMX in the presence of quaternary ammonium salt could be increased by 338 J/g.Thermal decomposition process of HMX and AP can be inhibited,exhibiting a"platform"with a low-intensity before the AlO irradiation peak.The inclusion of Al@HMX can reduce the ignition delay time of corresponding propellants by 49.4%.The two kinds of burning rate inhibitors can significantly reduce the burning rates of propellants over the pressure range of 10-20MPa.A burning rate reduction of 7.1 mm/s(38.4%)and a decreasing pressure exponent of 0.25 were ob-tained for propellant containing Al@HMX composites and quaternary ammonium salt.The propellant burning rate can be de-creased by 5.0 mm/s(27.3%)under 20 MPa when 1%of quaternary ammonium salt was sited on the surface of AP.