Motor Flow Instabilities - Part 1

Abstract

This paper will be given in two separate talks, a first one presenting the general problem and applications to actual motors and a second talk dealing more specifically with stability theory. Solid propellant rocket motor instability has been the subject of many research works for more than 40 years and valuable reviews can be found in references 1, 2. First concerns were to understand the sometimes violent instabilities that occurred during motor firings that could lead to motor failure or destruction. The combustion mechanisms were among the first to be studied since most of the energy released in the motor chamber is due to chemical reactions linked to propellant combustion. Indeed, only a very small fraction of this energy could, if directed to few instability modes, results in abnormal strains that could lead to propellant or case failure and then to motor destruction (see 2). Instability modes can be of several types and had been classified into volume modes and acoustic modes (see 1). Only the latter will be considered here since they appeared to be the most unpredictable. In such situations, the instabilities organize themselves around chamber acoustic modes and produce acoustic resonances,

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA425256

Entities

People

  • F. Vuillot
  • G. Casalis

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acoustic Frequencies
  • Acoustic Resonance
  • Acoustic Waves
  • Boundary Layer
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Combustion
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Computational Science
  • Control Systems
  • Flow Fields
  • Navier Stokes Equations
  • Propellants
  • Rocket Engines
  • Solid Propellants
  • Stratified Fluids
  • Turbulent Mixing
  • Two Dimensional

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.
  • Educational Psychology
  • Rocket Propulsion.