Skip to main content

Aluminum Agglomerate Size Measurements in Composite Propellant Combustion

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Innovative Design and Development Practices in Aerospace and Automotive Engineering

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering ((LNME))

Abstract

Experimental and numerical investigation have been done to evaluate the aluminum agglomerate size in AP/HTPB/Aluminum propellants and compared it with burning rate results. Bimodal AP particle size distribution is considered in the present work. The effect of aluminum size, aluminum content, fine AP size, fine AP/binder ratio and coarse AP size in aluminum ignition, accumulation and agglomerate formation during combustion, typically in their ranges, are focused. The burning rates were found to be higher for the propellants with lower fine AP/binder ratio. The agglomerate sizes for the propellants with 10 % Al was found to be higher than those with 15 and 18 % aluminum. Observing the agglomerate sizes and the burning rate trends, it can be concluded that the agglomerate sizes vary inversely as the burning rates.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Babuk, V. A., Belov, V. P., and Khodosov, V. V. (1988), Study of the structure of Agglomerates with Combustion of Aluminized Mixed Condensed Systems, Physics of Combustion and Explosion, 24(4), 552–557.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Babuk, V. A., Vasilyev, V. A. and Malakhov, M.S. (1999), Condensed Combustion Products at the Burning Surface of Aluminized Solid Propellant, Journal of Propulsion and Power, 15(6), 783–793.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Babuk V. A. and Vasilyev V. A. (2002), Model of Aluminum Agglomerate Evolution in Combustion Products of Solid Rocket Propellant, Journal of Propulsion and Power, 18(4), 814–823.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Cohen N. S. (1983), A Pocket Model for Aluminum Agglomeration in Composite Propellants, AIAA Journal, 21, 720–725.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Dokhan A., Price E. W., Seitzman J. M. and Sigman R. K. (2001), The Effects of Aluminum Particle Size on the Burning Rate and Residual Oxide in Aluminized Propellants, A.AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint propulsion conference and Exhibit, AIAA-2001–3581.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Grigoriev, V. G., Kutsenogy, K. P. and Zarko, V. E. (1981), Model of Aluminum Agglomeration in Combustion of Double-Base Composition, Physics of Combustion and Explosion, 14(4), 9–17 (in Russian).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Grigoriev, V. G, Zarko, V. E. and Kutsenogy, K. P. (1981), Experimental Investigation of Aluminum Particle Agglomeration in Condensed System Combustion, Physics of Combustion and Explosion, 17(3), 3–10 (in Russian).

    Google Scholar 

  8. Jayaraman K., Anand K.V., Bhatt D.S., Chakravarthy S.R., and Sarathi R. (2009), Production, Characterization, and Combustion of Nanoaluminum in Composite Solid Propellants, Journal of Propulsion and Power, 25(2), 471–481.

    Google Scholar 

  9. K. Jayaraman, K. V. Anand, S. R. Chakravarthy, and R. Sarathi, “Effect of Nano-Aluminium in plateau-burning and catalyzed solid propellant combustion”, Combustion and Flame, 2009, Vol. 156, No. 8, pp. 1662–1673.

    Google Scholar 

  10. K. Jayaraman, S. R. Chakravarthy, and R. Sarathi, “Accumulation of nano-aluminium in the combustion of composite solid propellant mixtures”, Combustion, Explosion and Shockwaves, 2010, 46, 21–29.

    Google Scholar 

  11. K.V. Anand, A. Roy, I. Mulla, K. Balbudhe, K. Jayaraman, S.R. Chakravarthy, Experimental data and model predictions of aluminium agglomeration in ammonium perchlorate-based composite propellants including plateau-burning formulations, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, 34, 2013, 2139–2146.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Povinelli, L. A. and Rosenstein, H. A. (1964), Alumina Size Distributions from High Pressure Composite Solid Propellant Combustion, AIAA, 2, 1754–1760.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Price, E. W. (1984), Combustion of Metallized Propellants, chapter 9 in Fundamentals of Solid Propellant Combustion, Kuo, K. K. and Summerfield, M. (eds.), Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics, 91, AIAA, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Sambamurthi J. K., Price E. W., and Sigman R. K. (1984), Aluminum Agglomeration in Solid Propellant Combustion, AIAA Journal, 22, 1132–1138.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Zarko, V. E. (1998), Metal Combustion in Rockets, Chapter 10, 301–353, Modeling and Performance Prediction in Rockets and Guns, Chakravarthy, S. R. and Krishnan, S. (eds.), Allied Publishers, Chennai, India.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to K. Jayaraman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore

About this paper

Cite this paper

Jayaraman, K., Boopathy, G. (2017). Aluminum Agglomerate Size Measurements in Composite Propellant Combustion. In: Bajpai, R.P., Chandrasekhar, U. (eds) Innovative Design and Development Practices in Aerospace and Automotive Engineering. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1771-1_47

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1771-1_47

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-10-1770-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-10-1771-1

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics