The combustion of aluminum and magnesium is an attractive power source. Many practical tests have been conducted as a composite propellant of metal powder and water. However, because the safety and the ease of handling are required to be launched into space, it is desirable that nonpowder metal is used as fuel and stored separately from oxidizer. Heat loss has a significant impact on the combustion of bulk metals. Though combustion behavior of bulk metals differs from that of powders, little has been reported on the combustion of bulk metal with water. This study, first, considered two types of ignition method: Joule heating and induction heating and investigated their feasibility in the scale of small spacecraft. Then, two types of experiments were carried out. The former is the wire combustion experiment using Joule heating. This experiment revealed that the characteristics of millimeter scale bulk metal combustion with water vapor. The latter experiment is the induction heating of a magnesium rod as an initial test of the ignition system for centimeter scale fuel. This test demonstrated the heating of the metal and identified the rooms for improvement to ignite the fuel.
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