Investigation of hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene propellant breaking characteristics and mechanism impacted by submerged cavitation water jet

A submerged cavitation water jet(SCWJ)is an effective method to recycle solid propellant from obsolete solid engines by the breaking method.Solid propellant's breaking modes and mechanical process under SCWJ impact are unclear.This study aims to understand those impact breaking mechanisms.The hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene(HTPB)propellant was chosen as the research material,and a self-designed test system was used to conduct impact tests at four different working pressures.The high-speed camera characterized crack propagation,and the DIC method calculated strain change during the impact process.Besides,micro and macro fracture morphologies were characterized by scanning electron microscope(SEM)and computed tomography(CT)scanning.The results reveal that the compressive strain concentration region locates right below the nozzle,and the shear strain region distributes symmetrically with the jet axis,which increases to 4% at first 16th ms,the compressive strain rises to 2% and 6% in the axial and transverse direction,respectively.The two tensile cracks formed first at the compression strain concentrate region,and there generate many shear cracks around the tensile cracks,and those shear cracks that develop and aggregate cause the cracks to become wider and cut through the tensile cracks,forming the tensile-shear cracks and the impact parts eventually fail.The HTPB propellant forms a breaking hole shaped conical after impact 10 s.The mass loss increases by 17 times at maximum,with the working pressure increasing by three times.Meanwhile,the damage value of the breaking hole remaining on the surface increases by 7.8 times while 2.9 times in the depth of the breaking hole.The breaking efficiency is closely affected by working pressures.The failure modes of HTPB impacted by SCWJ are classified as tensile crack-dominated and tensile-shear crack-dominated damage mechanisms.

Numerical simulation of bubble chaotic motion in a cavitating water jet

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is developed to investigate the radical motion of single cavitating bubble in the oscillating pressure field of a cavitating water jet. Regarding water as a compressible fluid, the simulation is performed at different oscillating frequencies. It is found that the bubble motion presents obvious nonlinear feature, and bifurcation and chaos appear on some conditions. The results manifest the indetermination of the cavitating bubble motion in the oscillating pressure field of the cavitating water jet.

Energy Consumption in Comminution of Mica with Cavitation Abrasive Water Jet

We have studied the efficiency of energy consumption in the comminution of mica powder with cavitation abrasive water jet technology. The energy required to create new surfaces in the comminution of mica powder with cavitation abrasive water jet was calculated,in order to estimate its efficiency of energy consumption. The particle size distribution and the specific surface area were measured by applying a JEM-200CX transmission electron microscope and an Autosorb-1 automatic surface area analyzer. The study results show that the efficiency of energy consumed in creating new surface areas is as high as 2.92%,or 4.94% with the aid of cavitation in the comminution of mica powder. This efficiency will decrease with an increase in the number of comminutions. After three comminutions,the efficien-cies will become 1.91% and 2.29% for comminution without cavitation and with cavitation,respectively. The abrasive water jet technology is an effective way for comminution of mica powder.

Phenol Oxidation by Combined Cavitation Water Jet and Hydrogen Peroxide

The paper presents results of phenol oxidized under the conditions of high temperature created during collapse of cavitation bubbles.The degradation efficiency has been greatly improved by using cavitation water jets combined with H2O2 as demonstrated in laboratory tests.Various factors affecting phenol removal ratio were ex-amined and the degradation mechanism was revealed by high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC).The re-sults showed that 99.85% of phenol was mineralized when phenol concentration was 100 mg·L-1 with pH value of 3.0,H2O2 concentration of 300 mg·L-1,confining pressure of 0.5 MPa,and pumping pressure of 20 MPa.The in-termediate products after phenol oxidation were composed of catechol,hydroquinone and p-benzoquinone.Finally,phenol was degraded into maleic acid and acetic acid.Furthermore,a dynamic model of phenol oxidation via cavi-tation water jets combined with H2O2 has been developed.

Numerical simulation on turbulent flow field in convergentdiveroent nozzle

Because of the complication of turbulence＇s mechanism and law as well as the jet pressure in nozzle is difficult to test by experiment, five turbulent models were applied to numerically simulate the turbulent flow field in convergent-divergent nozzle. Theory analysis and experiment results of mass flow rates conclude that the RNG k-ε model is the most suitable model. The pressure distribution in the convergent-divergent nozzle was revealed by computational fluid dynamic （CFD） simulating on the turbulent flow field under different pressure conditions. The growing conditions of cavitation bubbles were shown; meanwhile, the phenomena in the experiment could be explained. The differential pres- sure between the upstream and downstream in nozzle throat section can improve the cavitating effect of cavitation water jet.