Experimental study on composite solid propellant material burning rate using algorithm MATLAB

• Main Authors: Thunaipragasam Selvakumaran, Natarajan Kadiresh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: VINCA Institute of Nuclear Sciences 2016-01-01
• Series: Thermal Science
• Subjects: composite; solid propellant material; burning rate; image processing; particle size; binder; ammonium perchlorate; hydroxyl terminated poly-butadiene; toluene di-isocyanate; MATLAB
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0354-9836/2016/0354-983616119T .pdf
• ISSN: 0354-9836; 2334-7163

In rocketry application, now-a-days instead of monopropellants slowly composite propellants are introduced. Burning rate of a solid state composite propellant depends on many factors like oxidizer-binder ratio, oxidizer particle size and distribution, particle size and its distribution, pressure, temperature, etc. Several researchers had taken the mass varied composite propellant. In that, the ammonium perchlorate mainly varied from 85 to 90%. This paper deals with the oxidizer rich propellant by allowing small variation of fuel cum binder ranging from 2%, 4%, 6%, and 8% by mass. Since the percent of the binder is very less compared to the oxidizer, the mixture remains in a powder form. The powder samples are used to make a pressed pellet. Experiments were conducted in closed window bomb set-up at pressures of 2, 3.5, and 7 MN/m2. The burning rates are calculated from the combustion photography (images) taken by a high-speed camera. These images were processed frame by frame in MATLAB, detecting the edges in the images of the frames. The burning rate is obtained as the slope of the linear fit from MATLAB and observed that the burn rate increases with the mass variation of constituents present in solid state composite propellant. The result indicates a remarkable increase in burn rate of 26.66%, 20%, 16.66%, and 3.33% for Mix 1, 2, 3, 4 compared with Mix 5 at 7 MN/m2. The percentage variations in burn rate between Mix 1 and Mix 5 at 2, 3.5, and 7 MN/m2 are 25.833%, 32.322%, and 26.185%, respectively.