Applications of Various Methods of Analysis to Combustion Instabilities in Solid Propellant Rockets

Instabilities of motions in a combustion chamber are consequences of the coupled dynamics of combustion processes and of the flow in the chamber. The extreme complexities of the problem always require approximations of various sorts to make progress in understanding the mechanisms and behavior of combustion instabilities. This paper covers recent progress in the subject, mainly summarizing efforts in two areas: approximate analysis based on a form of Galerkin's method, particularly useful for understanding the global linear and nonlinear dynamics of combustion instabilities and numerical simulations intended to accommodate as fully as possible fundamental chemical processes in both the condensed and gaseous phases. One purpose of current work is to bring closer together these approaches to produce more comprehensive and detailed realistic results applicable to the interpretation of observations and for design of new rockets for both space and military applications. Particularly important are the goals of determining the connections between chemical composition and instabilities; and the influences of geometry on nonlinear behavior

Combustion/particle sizing experiments at the Naval Postgraduate School Combustion Research Laboratory

Particle behavior in combustion processes is an active research area at NPS. Currently, four research efforts are being conducted: (1) There is a long standing need to better understand the soot production and combustion processes in gas turbine combustors, both from a concern for improved engine life and to minimize exhaust particulates. Soot emissions are strongly effected by fuel composition and additives; (2) A more recent need for particle sizing/behavior measurements is in the combustor of a solid fuel ramjet which uses a metallized fuel. High speed motion pictures are being used to study rather large burning particles; (3) In solid propellant rocket motors, metals are used to improve specific impulse and/or to provide damping for combustion pressure oscillations. Particle sizing experiments are being conducted using diode arrays to measure the light intensity as a function of scattering angle; (4) Once a good quality hologram is attained, a need exists for obtaining the particle distributions from hologram in a short period of time. A Quantimet 720 Image Analyzer is being used to reconstruct images

Steady state aerothermochemistry for liquid bipropellant rocket motors

Model and theoretical equations describing liquid propellant droplet ballistics and combustion gas behavior in bipropellant rocket motors - aerothermochemistr

Transient processes in the combustion of nitramine propellants

A transient combustion model of nitramine propellants is combined with an isentropic compression shock formation model to determine the role of nitramine propellant combustion in DDT, excluding effects associated with propellant structural properties or mechanical behavior. The model is derived to represent the closed pipe experiment that is widely used to characterize explosives, except that the combustible material is a monolithic charge rather than compressed powder. Computations reveal that the transient combustion process cannot by itself produce DDT by this model. Compressibility of the solid at high pressure is the key factor limiting pressure buildups created by the combustion. On the other hand, combustion mechanisms which promote pressure buildups are identified and related to propellant formulation variables. Additional combustion instability data for nitramine propellants are presented. Although measured combustion response continues to be low, more data are required to distinguish HMX and active binder component contributions. A design for a closed vessel apparatus for experimental studies of high pressure combustion is discussed

Phase resolved PLIF and chemiluminescence for measuring combustion dynamics

Transient behavior of combustion systems has long been a subject of both fundamental and practical concerns. Extreme cases of very rapid changes include the ignition of reacting mixtures and detonation. At the other extreme is a wide range of quasi-steady changes of behavior, for example adjustments of the operating point of a combustion chamber. Between the limiting cases of 'infinitely fast' and 'infinitesimally slow' lie important fundamental problems of time-dependent behavior and a wide array of practical applications. Among the latter are combustion instabilities and their active control, a primary motivation for the work reported in this paper. Owing to the complicated chemistry, chemical kinetics and flow dynamics of actual combustion systems, numerical simulations of their behavior remains in a relatively primitive state. Even as that situation continually improves, it is an essential part of the field that methods of measuring true dynamical behavior be developed to provide results having both fine spatial resolution and accuracy in time. This paper is a progress report of recent research carried out in the Jet Propulsion Center of the California Institute of Technology

Some dynamics of acoustic oscillations with nonlinear combustion and noise

The results given in this paper constitute a continuation of progress with nonlinear analysis of coherent oscillations in combustion chambers. We are currently focusing attention on two general problems of nonlinear behavior important to practical applications: the conditions under which a linearly unstable system will execute stable periodic limit cycles; and the conditions under which a linearly stable system is unstable to a sufficiently large disturbance. The first of these is often called 'soft' excitation, or supercritical bifurcation; the second is called 'hard' excitation, 'triggering,' or subcritical bifurcation and is the focus of this paper. Previous works extending over more than a decade have established beyond serious doubt (although no formal proof exists) that nonlinear gasdynamics alone does not contain subcritical bifurcations. The present work has shown that nonlinear combustion alone also does not contain subcritical bifurcations, but the combination of nonlinear gasdynamics and combustion does. Some examples are given for simple models of nonlinear combustion of a solid propellant but the broad conclusion just mentioned is valid for any combustion system. Although flows in combustors contain considerable noise, arising from several kinds of sources, there is sound basis for treating organized oscillations as distinct motions. That has been an essential assumption incorporated in virtually all treatments of combustion instabilities. However, certain characteristics of the organized or deterministic motions seem to have the nature of stochastic processes. For example, the amplitudes in limit cycles always exhibit a random character and even the occurrence of instabilities seems occasionally to possess some statistical features. Analysis of nonlinear coherent motions in the presence of stochastic sources is therefore an important part of the theory. We report here a few results of power spectral densities of acoustic amplitudes in the presence of a subcritical bifurcation associated with nonlinear combustion and gasdynamics

Warehouse commodity classification from fundamental principles. Part I: Commodity & burning rates

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the burning behavior of an individual Group A plastic commodity over time. The objective of the study was to evaluate the use of a nondimensional parameter to describe the time-varying burning rate of a fuel in complex geometries. The nondimensional approach chosen to characterize burning behavior over time involved comparison of chemical energy released during the combustion process with the energy required to vaporize the fuel, measured by a B-number. The mixed nature of the commodity and its package, involving polystyrene and corrugated cardboard, produced three distinct stages of combustion that were qualitatively repeatable. The results of four tests provided flame heights, mass-loss rates and heat fluxes that were used to develop a phenomenological description of the burning behavior of a plastic commodity. Three distinct stages of combustion were identified. Time-dependent and time-averaged B-numbers were evaluated from mass-loss rate data using assumptions including a correlation for turbulent convective heat transfer. The resultant modified B-numbers extracted from test data incorporated the burning behavior of constituent materials, and a variation in behavior was observed as materials participating in the combustion process varied. Variations between the four tests make quantitative values for each stage of burning useful only for comparison, as errors were high. Methods to extract the B-number with a higher degree of accuracy and future use of the results to improve commodity classification for better assessment of fire danger are discussed. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Experiments concerning the mechanism of flame blowoff from bluff bodies

The general problem of flame stabilization on bluff objects centers about the determination of the maximum stream velocity at which stable combustion may be achieved for various flame holder geometries, gas mixtures and conditions of the approaching combustible stream. Since the process involves both gas dynamic problems and chemical kinetic problems of great complexity, the most reasonable approach is one of similarity, that is, to determine under what conditions the behavior of one flame holder is similar to the behavior of another one. Because a very large number of physical and chemical variables is involved in a combustion problem, similarity conditions can be formulated most easily after experimental investigations have indicated which parameters or groups exert little influence on the mechanism and hence may be neglected. The experiments described in this paper were conducted with the object of clarifying the role of the more important parameters in the flame holding mechanism. The results indicate that a relatively simple formulation of the similarity conditions may be obtained in which the fluid mechanical parameters and chemical parameters are effectively separated