Effect of Solid Propellant Binder on the Formation and Evolution of AluminumCombustion Products

摘要

Novel particle collection and high speed photography techniques have been used tostudy the combustion behavior of an inert binder (IB) propellant and an energetic binder (EB) propellant. Both contained 18% aluminum and 37% coarse AP in order to provide very similar geometrical structures, and both propellants had essentially common burning rates. The aluminum combustion efficiency is higher and the characteristic agglomerate size is significantly smaller for the EB propellant than for the IB propellant (at 43 atm the agglomerate size, D43, was 190 micrometers for the EB propellant and 670 micrometers for the IB propellant). X-ray photography and visual observations of quenching particles show that similar sized agglomerates can differ significantly in structure and aluminum content, and there is some indication of internal voids (i.e. low density). This appears to be a result of the different initial conditions that the agglomerates are exposed to when they initially form at the surface.