Effect of Initial Grain Temperature on Combustion Response of Composite Solid Propellants in T-burner

ABSTRACT

The effect of initial grain temperature on the combustion response of composite solid propellants (AP/HTPB/RDX/Al) is experimentally investigated using a T-burner. Tests were conducted at different frequencies ranging from 200–400 Hz and at different pressures of 1–8 MPa at different initial propellant temperatures using a novel method (303 K, 243 K and 343 K) for two industrial-grade propellants, propellant-A and propellant-B. The test results revealed that the hot and cold temperatures increase the response. The combustion responses of the propellant-B are lower than propellant-A. Pulsed tests are conducted when the propellant showed low or negative response. This work highlights that the initial grain temperature is a crucial factor in determining the stability of solid rocket motors. The negative response compels us to further investigate toward a better understanding about the unsteady combustion behavior since there is no model available which could predict negative responses as of today.

KEYWORDS:

• T-Burner
• combustion response
• composite solid propellant
• negative response
• effect of temperature

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. B.S. Subhash Chandran for his strenuous support and tremendous knowledge he had shared with us to complete this work. Thanks are due to Mr. Karthik and Mr. Annamalai who had helped in assembling the test set up to conduct the experiments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by  Defence Research and Development Organisation, Ministry of Defence, Govt. of India.