Ignition and Combustion of Solid Propellants
Abstract
The results of the study of propellant ignition by high convective heat fluxes have shown that the gas velocity effect often observed in convective heating tests can be attributed to surface roughness. If this surface roughness effect is eliminated by the use of very smooth propellant surfaces or by use of very high gas velocities which prevent ignition of projections on the surface, the relationship between ignition time and surface heat flux is simply the extrapolation of the low-flux ignition data. Also, it appears that the effect of a burning rate catalyst is to increase the rate of reaction of propellant-component decomposition products at the propellant surface. Modification of the thermal ignition theory to include the effects of surface regression for high igniter heat fluxes has lead to results which indicate that an ignition-pressure effect on the overall ignition process can be observed with practical ignition systems even when the thermal response of the propellant itself is independent of pressure. The problem of transition from ignition to steady-state burning can be approximately treated by this model. The results of a re-evaluation of the hot-wire ignition technique have been encouraging. It is possible to accurately measure ignition times from 10 msec to 10 sec, and these results are comparable to data from low flux radiation tests.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 1964
- Accession Number
- AD0615103
Entities
People
- Alva D. Baer
- John A. Keller
- Norman W. Ryan
Organizations
- University of Utah