Innovative Metal Fuels for Solid Rocket Propulsion(Abstract)

摘要

Metals are commonly used as high-energy fuels for thermochemical rocket propulsion, especially for solid propellant systems. Traditionally, micron-sized Al (uAI) has been implemented for several decades in space launcher vehicles. Although very appealing for a variety of reasons (high energy release, low cost, easily available, not toxic, and so on), limitations in the use of this ingredient also became apparent: relatively difficult ignition, large combustion times leading to thick flames, poor combustion efficiency and agglomeration leading to reduced specific impulse efficiency, and more. Thus, research activities are under progress in different countries with the goal of replacing the current uAI fuel with more efficient fuel systems. In this paper activated micron-sized Al of different size, nano-sized Al with or without coating, composite nano-sized Al, composite micron-sized MgB, and other innovative metal fuels were tested at laboratory level under standard ballistic operating conditions. The metal fuels were incorporated in a flight-certified AP/AI/HTPB solid rocket propellant formulation taken as reference baseline.