Fuel-rich solid propellant based ramjet rockets offer a combination of higher range, high speed, continuous power and compactness. They have a specific impulse comparable to liquids, while retaining other advantages like simple design, self-throttling etc. of solid propellants. Invariably, fuel-rich solid propellants for ram-rockets use high metal contents (>30%). Combustion of metalized fuel-rich propellant in ramjet mode uses a primary chamber, where fuel-rich propellant is pyrolyzed, or partially burnt to give a fuel-rich gaseous product, which is expelled to undergo full combustion in the secondary chamber with ram-air coming from air-intakes. Since fuel-rich solid propellants have high metal powder loading in an organic binder matrix, combustion mechanism of fuel-rich propellant is affected to a large extent by the combustion of metal powder.
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