Study on Instable Combustion of Solid Rocket Motor with Finocyl Grain

The instable combustion or oscillation combustion which occurs in three high capacity solid rocket motors using high energy composite propellant with finocyl grain is studied. The reasons of the acoustic combustion instability are also discussed. Three engineering methods that can eliminate combustion instability are proposed and discussed. The study shows that the combustion instability mainly depends on the propellant grain shape and nozzle structure. Some measures to reduce the acoustic energy and mass generation rate of combustion gas can be adopted. The test results indicate that the modified rocket motors can significantly eliminate the instable combustion and improve the motor internal ballistic performance.

Research on the Initial Ignition of the Underwater Launching Solid Rocket Motor

The aim of this investigation is to research the initial ignition of the underwater-launching solid rocket motor.The MIXTURE multiple-phase model was set to simulate the initial ignition.The water vaporization was researched and the energy transfer was added to the energy equations.The flow field and the vaporization were calculated coupled.The initial ignition process of the underwater solid rocket motor is obtained and the vaporization influence to the underwater launching is analyzed.The "neck","inverted jet" and "eruption" phenomenon of the bubble are observed.The bubble increases more rapidly because the steam mass added to the fuel.The temperature is lower considering the vaporization because the steam enthalpy is lower than the fuel enthalpy and the flow field of the initial ignition of the underwater-launching solid rocket motor is accordant well to the reference.

Laminar and Turbulent Characteristics of the Acoustic/Fluid Dynamics Interactions in a Slender Simulated Solid Rocket Motor Chamber

In this paper,analytical,computational,and experimental studies are integrated to examine unsteady acoustic/vorticity transport phenomena in a solid rocket motor chamber with end-wall disturbance and side-wall injection.Acoustic-fluid dynamic interactions across the chamber may generate intense unsteady vorticity with associated shear stresses.These stresses may cause scouring and,in turn,enhance the heat rate and erosional burning of solid propellant in a real rocket chamber.In this modelling,the unsteady propellant gasification is mimicked by steady-state flow disturbed by end-wall oscillations.The analytical approach is formulated using an asymptotic technique to reduce the full governing equations.The equations that arise from the analysis possess wave properties are solved in an initial-boundary value sense.The numerical study is performed by solving the parabolized Navier–Stokes equations for the DNS simulation and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations along with the energy equation using the control volume approach based on a staggered grid system with the turbulence modelling.The v2-f turbulence model has been implemented.The results show that an unexpectedly large amplitude of unsteady vorticity is generated at the injection side-wall of the chamber and is then penetrated downstream by the bulk motion of the internal flow.These stresses may cause a scouring effect and large transient heat transfer on the combustion surface.A comparison between the analytical,computational,and experimental results is performed.

Influence of Solid Rocket Motor Slag on the Space Debris Environment

The resulting slag particles from solid rocket motor( SRM) firings are an important component of space debris environment. Slag sizes as large as 1 cm have been witnessed in ground tests,and comparable sizes have been also estimated via observations of sub-orbital tail-off events. We achieve slag initial data based on MASTER slag model and SRM historical launch data,and propagate slag long-term orbital evolution taking into account the zonal harmonics J2,atmospheric drag,solar radiation pressure and luni-solar attraction to discuss the slag size distribution and orbital characteristics. Finally,future slag debris environment is evaluated based on two different launch rate assumptions. The result shows that current launch frequency will make the slag population sustain growth and the population will not decrease at once even if there are no more launches in the future.

On the Transient Numerical Simulation of Solid Rocket Motor by Coupling Quasi One⁃Dimension Internal Flow with Three⁃Dimension Propellant Grain Burnback

The quasi one⁃dimension compressible flowfield coupled to the three⁃dimension propellant grain regression solved by the level⁃set method was used to simulate the transient internal ballistics of solid rocket motor.One⁃dimension flowfield instead of three⁃dimension can save computational cost on the premise of calculation accuracy because the radial and azimuthal variations parameters have little contribution to the internal flowfield.The grain regression in real⁃time could provide accurate geometrical information for simulation.A combination of flowfluid solver and grain regression can reappear in a relatively real internal ballistic flowfield,so it is good for further studying the instability of solid rocket motor.For level⁃set equations,the total variation⁃diminishing second⁃order Runge⁃Kutta method for temporal derivatives and a fifth⁃order weighted⁃essentially⁃non⁃oscillatory scheme for spatial derivatives were used.The total variation⁃diminishing MacCormack method was used to discrete the Euler equations in flowfield solver.Two modules of this code were tested in this study:one is the burning rate module and the other is the nozzle erosion module.Results show that the burning rate influenced the solid rocket motor efficiency,and the velocity profile in the chamber was affected by the nozzle shape,and the nozzle erosion could influence the head⁃end pressure spike.

China's Civil Solid Rocket Motors

China develops solid fuelrocket technology completely de-pending on its own strength.Since the late 1950s,variouskinds of solid rocket engines de-veloped by the 4th Academy ofChina Aerospace Corporation(CASC)have been used intomany positioning and recoveringtests of various satellites and over100 flight tests of various missileswith a 100％ successful rate.InOctober,1982,especially,Chinasuccessfully launched a solid fuelrocket from a submarine underwater,which reflected China’shigh level in this field.China’scivilian solid rocket engines are asfollows:

Solid Rocket Motors for Launch Escape Tower Provide Safety to Astronauts

Compared with other ordinary launch vehicles, the LM-2F launch vehicle has two special systems, the fault detection processing system and launch escape system, because it is used for manned spaceflight missions. During the 10 flight missions carried out by LM-2F, only the

Research on Instantaneous Thrust Measurement for Attitude-control Solid Rocket Motor

In order to measure the instantaneous thrust of a certain attitude-control solid rocket motor, based on the analysis of the measurement principles, the difference between the instantaneous thrust and steady thrust measurements is pointed out. According to the measurement characteristics, a dynamic digital filter compensation method is presented. Combined the identification-modeling, dynamic compensation and simulation, the system's dynamic mathematic model is established. And then, a compensation digital filter is also designed. Thus, the dynamic response of the system is improved and the instantaneous thrust measurement can be implemented. The measurement results for the rocket motor show that the digital filter compensation is effective in the instantaneous thrust measurement.

Numerical study on combustion efficiency of aluminum particles in solid rocket motor

The combustion of aluminum particles in solid rocket motor plays an important role in energy release of propellants. However, due to the limited residence time, aluminum particles may not be burned completely, thus hindering the improvement of specific impulse. This study aims to explore the characteristics of aluminum combustion efficiency and its influencing factors by experiments and numerical simulations, providing a guideline for engine performance improvement. As an input of simulation, the initial agglomerate size was measured by a high pressure system. Meanwhile, the size distribution of the particles in plume was measured by ground firing test to validate the numerical model. Then, a two-phase flow model coupling combustion of micro aluminum particle was developed, by which the detailed effects of particle size, detaching position and nozzle convergent section structure on aluminum combustion efficiency were explored. The results suggest that the average combustion temperature in the chamber drops with increasing initial particle size,while the maximum temperature increases slightly. In the tested motors, the aluminum particle burns completely as its diameter is smaller than 50 μm, and beyond 50 μm the combustion efficiency decreases obviously with the increase of initial size. As the diameter approaches to 75 μm, the combustion efficiency becomes more sensitive to particle size. The combustion efficiency of aluminum particle escaping from end-burning surfaces is significantly higher than that from internal burning surface, where the particle combustion efficiency decreases during approaching the convergent section. Furthermore, the combustion efficiency decreases slightly with increasing nozzle convergent section angle. And theoretically it is feasible to improve combustion efficiency of aluminum particles by designing the convergent profile of nozzle.

Design and optimization of solid rocket motor Finocyl grain using simulated annealing

The research effort outlined the application of a computer aided design(CAD)-centric technique to the design and optimization of solid rocket motor Finocyl(fin in cylinder) grain using simulated annealing.The proper method for constructing the grain configuration model,ballistic performance and optimizer integration for analysis was presented.Finocyl is a complex grain configuration,requiring thirteen variables to define the geometry.The large number of variables not only complicates the geometrical construction but also optimization process.CAD representation encapsulates all of the geometric entities pertinent to the grain design in a parametric way,allowing manipulation of grain entity(web),performing regression and automating geometrical data calculations.Robustness to avoid local minima and efficient capacity to explore design space makes simulated annealing an attractive choice as optimizer.It is demonstrated with a constrained optimization of Finocyl grain geometry for homogeneous,isotropic propellant,uniform regression,and a quasi-steady,bulk mode internal ballistics model that maximizes average thrust for required deviations from neutrality.

Numerical simulation of multi-phase combustion flow in solid rocket motors with metalized propellant

Multi-phase flowfield simulation has been performed on solid rocket motor and effect of multi-phases on the performance prediction of the solid rocket motor(SRM) is investigation.During the combustion of aluminized propellant,the aluminum particles in the propellant melt and formliquid aluminum at the burning propellant surface.So the flow within the rocket motor is multi phase or two phase because it contains droplets and smoke particles of Al2O3.Flowsi mulations have been performed on a large scale motor,to observe the effect of the flowfield onthe chamber and nozzle as well.Uniform particles diameters and Rosin-Rammler diameter distribution method that is based on the assumption that an exponential relationship exists betweenthe droplet diameter,dand mass fraction of droplets with diameter greater thandhave been used for the si mulation of different distribution of Al2O3 droplets present in SRM.Particles sizes in the range of 1-100μm are used,as being the most common droplets.In this approachthe complete range of particle sizes is dividedinto a set of discrete size ranges,eachto be defined by single streamthat is part of the group.Roe scheme-flux differencing splitting based on approxi mate Riemann problem has been used to si mulate the effects of the multi-phase flowfeild.This is second order upwind scheme in which flux differencing splitting method is employed.To cater for the turbulence effect,Spalart-All maras model has been used.The results obtained show the great sensitivity of this diameters distribution and particles concentrations to the SRMflowdynamics,primarily at the motor chamber and nozzle exit.The results are shown with various sizes of the particles concentrations and geometrical configurations including models for SRM and nozzle.The analysis also provides effect of multi-phase on performance prediction of solid rocket motor.

Radiative properties of alumina/aluminum particles and influence on radiative heat transfer in solid rocket motor

The thermal radiation of micron-sized condensed phase particles plays a dominant role during the heat transfer process in aluminized Solid Rocket Motors(SRMs).Open research mainly focuses on the radiative properties of alumina particles while the study considering the presence of aluminum is lacking.In addition,the thermal radiation inside the SRM with consideration of the participating particles is seldom studied.In this work,the multiscale method of predicting the thermal environment inside SRMs is established from the particle radiation at microscale to the twophase flow and heat transfer at macroscale.The effective gray radiative properties of individual particles(alumina,aluminum,and hybrid alumina/aluminum)and particles cloud are investigated with the Mie theory and approximate method.Then a numerical method for predicting the thermal environment inside SRMs with considering particle radiation is established and applied in a subscale motor.The convective and radiative heat flux distributions along inner wall of motor are obtained,and it is found that the heat transfer in the combustion chamber is dominated by thermal radiation and the radiative heat flux is essentially a constant of 5.6–6.8 MW/m^(2).The convective heat transfer plays a dominant role in the nozzle and the heat flux reaches the maximum value of 11.2 MW/m^(2) near the throat.As the combustion efficiency of aluminum drops,the radiative heat flux remains unchanged in most regions and increases slightly along the diverging section wall of the nozzle.

Measurement of alumina film induced ablation of internal insulator in solid rocket environment

This study investigates the ablation of internal insulation induced by the deposition of an alumina film with different lateral film speeds.A sub-scale test solid rocket motor(SRM)was designed in an impinging jet configuration to form an alumina film on the sample and to encourage the lateral movement of the film by a high-speed wall jet.Fifteen static fire tests of the test SRM were conducted with six different jet velocities(V_(jet)=100 m/s,150 m/s,200 m/s,268 m/s,330 m/s,and 450 m/s)that indirectly affected the velocity of the wall jet and the deposition rate of alumina droplets.The ablation velocity was deduced from the difference in the sample thickness after a test using a coordinate measuring machine.The droplet deposition mass flux and wall jet velocity were obtained via two-phase flow simulation with the same jet velocity and effective pressure.As a result,the characteristics of alumina-induced ablation and the changes in ablation with jet velocities were obtained.The area within0.8×jet diameter was focused upon,where the ratio of ablation velocity to incoming alumina mass was constant for each jet velocity,and showed a similarity in jet structure.When the ablation velocity was increased from 2.05 to 9.98 mm/s with increasing jet velocity,the ratio of the ablation velocity and alumina mass flux decreased from 1.07×10^(-4)to 0.49×10^(-4)m^(3)/kg as Al_(2)O_(3)-C reactions became less efficient with a reduced residence time of the film.Because the decrease in residence time by the wall jet is more pronounced for slow reactions involved in Al_(2)O_(3)-C reactions,fast reactions in Al_(2)O_(3)-C reactions are less affected and result in a convergence of the volumetric rate of ablation per unit mass of alumina.

Solid rocket motor propellant grain burnback simulation based on fast minimum distance function calculation and improved marching tetrahedron method

To efficiently compute arbitrary propellant grain evolution of the burning surface with uniform and non-uniform burning rate for solid rocket motor,a unified framework of burning surface regression simulation has been developed based on minimum distance function.In order to speed up the computation of the mini-mum distance between grid nodes of grain and the triangular mesh of burning surface,a fast distance querying method based on the equal size cube voxel structure was employed.An improved marching tetrahedron method based on piecewise linear approximation was carried out on second-order tetrahedral elements,achieved high-efficiency and adequate accuracy of burning surface extraction simultaneously.The cases of star grain,finocyl grain,and non-uniform tube grain were studied to verify the proposed method.The observed result indicates that the grain burnback computation method could realize the accurate simulation on unstructured tetrahedral mesh with a desirable performance on computational time.

An iterative approach for modal analysis of solid rocket motor incorporating frequency dependent modulus

The modulus of viscoelastic materials varies with excitation frequency.However,during modal analysis of frequency dependent materials,a material evaluation frequency is necessary because stiffness cannot be modified during eigenfrequency procedure.As a result,only those vibration modes are accurate,of which eigenfrequency is close to the material evaluation frequency.In order to obtain vibration modes of solid rocket motor(SRM) using material modulus based on frequency which is the same as the eigenfrequency,an iterative approach was proposed.Results of the iterative technique show that frequency modes obtained from the method are in complete agreement with the eigenfrequency and material evaluation frequency.

CT local reconstruction of solid rocket motor based on PI-POCS-TVM

In order to test the defects of solid rocket motor(SRM)accurately and efficiently,the computed tomography(CT)inspection scheme for SRM's defects was investigated and a CT local reconstruction algorithm called prior information-projection onto convex sets-total variation minimization(PI-POCS-TVM)was developed.The SRM was first inspected by industrial CT(ICT)to generate a low-resolution SRM image used as the prior information,then high-resolution local inspection was carried out for SRM's defects.To validate the effectiveness of the CT inspection scheme for SRM's defects,one SRM was inspected by a narrow fan beam ICT system.Filtered back projection(FBP)algorithm,POCS,POCS-TVM and PI-POCS-TVM algorithms were applied to reconstruct CT images.The performance of these algorithms was also compared.Results demonstrated the effectiveness of the CT inspection scheme for SRM's defects.Moreover,the PI-POCS-TVM algorithm has better local reconstruction image quality than the other three algorithms,showing great significance for accurate measurement of SRM's defects.

Numerical study on similarity of plume infrared radiation between reduced-scale solid rocket motors

This study seeks to determine the similarities in plume radiation between reduced and full-scale solid rocket models in ground test conditions through investigation of flow and radiation for a series of scale ratios ranging from 0.1 to 1. The radiative transfer equation(RTE) considering gas and particle radiation in a non-uniform plume has been adopted and solved by the finite volume method(FVM) to compute the three dimensional, spectral and directional radiation of a plume in the infrared waveband 2–6 μm. Conditions at wavelengths 2.7 μm and 4.3 μm are discussed in detail, and ratios of plume radiation for reduced-scale through full-scale models are examined. This work shows that, with increasing scale ratio of a computed rocket motor, area of the hightemperature core increases as a 2 power function of the scale ratio, and the radiation intensity of the plume increases with 2–2.5 power of the scale ratio. The infrared radiation of plume gases shows a strong spectral dependency, while that of Al_2O_3 particles shows spectral continuity of gray media.Spectral radiation intensity of a computed solid rocket plume's high temperature core increases significantly in peak radiation spectra of plume gases CO and CO_2. Al_2O_3 particles are the major radiation component in a rocket plume. There is good similarity between contours of plume spectral radiance from different scale models of computed rockets, and there are two peak spectra of radiation intensity at wavebands 2.7–3.0 μm and 4.2–4.6 μm. Directed radiation intensity of the entire plume volume will rise with increasing elevation angle.

Storage life of silicone rubber sealing ring used in solid rocket motor

It is urgent to carry out detailed research on storage performance of rubber sealing ring to get the criterion for its storage life. This paper acquires material ageing regularity by theoretical analysis and experimental confirmation. On this condition, failure mode and failure criterion of typical sealing structure is studied, and the failure mechanism is found. Thus by analyzing the stress distribution, the relationship between ageing state and sealing condition is established. Rationalization proposal is put forward and storage life of sealing ring is evaluated. The research mentionedabove has special reference to the design of sealing structures and can provide reference for prolonging their service life.

Preliminary design and optimization of slotted tube grain for solid rocket motor

In this paper,design and optimization technique of slotted tube grain for solid rocket motors has been discussed.In doing so,the design objectives and constraints have been set,geometric parameters identified,performance prediction parameters calculated,thereafter preliminary designs completed and finally optimal design reached.Geometric model for slotted tube grain configuration has been developed.Average thrust has been taken as the objective function with constraints of burning time,mass of propellant,fixed length and diameter of chamber case.Lumped parameter method has been used for calculating the performance prediction parameters.A set of preliminary designs has been completed and an analysis of these results conducted.Although all the preliminary results fulfill the design requirements in terms of objective function and constraints,however in order to attain the optimal design,Sequential quadratic programming optimization technique has been adopted.As the slotted tube grain geometry is totally dependent upon various independent variables and each of these variables has a bearing on explicit characteristic of grain designing,hence affects of the independent variables on performance parameters have been examined,thus variation laws have been developed.Basing on the variation laws and the analysis of preliminary design results,upper and lower limits have been defined for the independent geometric variables and an initial guess provided for conducting optimization.Results attained exhibits that an optimal result has been attained and the value of objective function has been maximized.All the design constraint limits have also been met while ensuring sound values of volumetric loading fraction,web fraction and neutrality.This methodology of design and optimization of slotted tube grain for solid rocket motors can be used by engineers as a reference guide for actual design and engineering purposes.