SECOND ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT STUDY OF HYDRAZINE REACTOR VACUUM START CHARACTERISTICS

摘要

Ignition delays and subsequent chamber pressure excursions in hydrazine catalytic reactors had been ascribed to liquid hydrazine wetting the outside surfaces of the porous catalyst particles and wicking into the pores by capillary flow until sufficient gas pressure is generated by reaction to expel the liquid. In an attempt to provide quantitative measurements of these phenomena experiments were conducted using high speed motion picture techniques to determine liquid hydrazine residence times as a function of the adsorbed gas condition of the catalyst and the liquid hydrazine/catalyst temperature. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide were found to have little or no effect on catalyst activity while hydrogen and ammonia were found to have effects which varied significantly with the gas conditioning pressure and with temperature. The implication of these observations is that ignition delays in hydrazine catalytic reactors are influenced by the reactor operating history, particularly the shutdown transient, as well as by the liquid hydrazine feed temperature.