Rockets & Missiles

UNIT-I

Combustion System of Solid Rockets

G.Dinesh Kumar
Assistant Professor(S.G)
gdineshk@hindustanuniv.ac.in
 UNIT- I ROCKETS SYSTEM

Ignition System in rockets - Types of Igniters - Igniter Design Considerations –

Design Consideration of liquid Rocket Combustion Chamber, Injector Propellant
Feed Lines, Valves, Propellant Tanks Outlet and Helium Pressurized and Turbine
feed Systems - Propellant Slosh and Propellant Hammer - Elimination of Geysering
Effect in Missiles - Combustion System of Solid Rockets.
 Combustion System of Solid Rockets
 The combustion in a solid propellant motor involves exceedingly complex
reactions taking place in the solid, liquid, and gas phases of a
heterogeneous mixture.
 Not only are the physical and chemical processes occurring during solid
propellant combustion not fully understood, but the available analytical
Combustion models remain oversimplified and unreliable.
 Experimental observations of burning propellants show complicated three
dimensional micro- structures, a three-dimensional flame structure,
intermediate products in the liquid and gaseous phase, spatially and
temporally variant processes, aluminum agglomeration, nonlinear response
behavior, formation of carbon particles, and other complexities yet to be
adequately reflected in mathematical models
 A typical flame for an AP/A1/HTPB* propellant looks very different, as
seen in Figure.
 Here the luminous flame seems to be attached to the burning surface, even
at low pressures. There is no dark zone.
 The flame structure appears to be one-dimensional. The burning rate of this
propellant decreases when the RDX percentage is increased and seems to
be almost unaffected by changes in RDX particle size. Much work has been
done to characterize the burning behavior of different propellants.
 The burning rate of all propellants is influenced by pressure , the initial
ambient solid propellant temperature, the burn rate catalyst, the aluminum
particle sizes and their size distribution, and to a lesser extent by other
ingredients and manufacturing process variables.
 Erosive burning is basically an accelerated combustion phenomenon
stimulated by increased heat transfer and erosion by local high velocities
 Satisfactory attainment of equilibrium chamber pressure with full gas flow
depends on:
 Characteristics of the igniter and the gas temperature.
 Motor propellant composition and surface ignitability.
 Heat transfer by radiation and convection between gas and grain surface.
 Grain flame spreading rate.
 The dynamics of filling the motor free volume with the hot gas.
Ignitibility of a propellant is affected by:
 The propellant formulation.
 The initial temperature of the propellant.
 The surrounding pressure.
 The mode of heat transfer.
 Grain surface toughness.
 Age of the propellant.
 The velocity of the hot igniter gas.
 The cavity volume and configuration.
 The variables determining grain-relative performance are core
surface area and specific impulse.
 Surface area is the amount of propellant exposed to interior
combustion flames, existing in a direct relationship with thrust.
 An increase in surface area will increase thrust but will reduce burn-
time since the propellant is being consumed at an accelerated rate.
 The optimal thrust is typically a constant one, which can be
achieved by maintaining a constant surface area throughout the
burn.
 Examples of constant surface area grain designs include: end
burning, internal-core and outer-core burning, and internal star core
burning.
 Solid propellants are either "composites" composed mostly of large,
distinct macroscopic particles or which are a homogeneous mixture
of one or more primary ingredients.
 Often, the ingredients of a double base propellant have multiple
roles such as RDX which is both a fuel and oxidizer or
nitrocellulose which is a fuel, oxidizer and plasticizer.
COMBUSTION MECHANISM OF SOLID PROPELLANTS:
Some solid rocket propellants are mixed at the molecular level. A double base propellant
made from nitrocellulose and nitro-glycerin. The dominant difference is the break in
temperature slope at the solid gas interface. The solid usually requires some heat input to
gasify and this heat is the heat of pyrolysis.
Consequently, the gas phase heat transfer at the interface goes towards providing both
the latent heat and continued heat transfer into the solid.
Advantages:
Solid propellant rockets are much easier to store and handle than liquid propellant
rockets.
High propellant density makes for compact size as well.
These features plus simplicity and low cost make solid propellant rockets ideal for
military applications.
These features plus simplicity and low cost make solid propellant rockets ideal for
military applications whenever large amounts of thrust are needed and cost is an issue.
Disadvantages:
Relative to liquid fuel rockets, solid fuel rockets have lower specific impulse.
The propellant mass ratios of solid propellant upper stages is usually in the .91 to .93
range which is as good or better than that of most liquid propellant upper stages but
overall performance is less than for liquid stages because of the solids' lower exhaust
velocities.
Solid rockets cannot be throttled in real time.
Solid fuel rockets are intolerant to cracks and voids.
COMBUSTION INSTABILITY
Combustion instability occurs when normal velocity (Vn) is not equal to the combustion velocity or
flame velocity(Vf).
There are 2 types of combustion instability:
1) Set of acoustic resonance, which can occur with any rocket motor.
2) Vortex shedding phenomenon, which only with particular type of propellant grains.
These two types of problems, mainly occurs only when the rocket combustion is not
controlled. It causes excessive pressure vibration forces or excessive heat transfer.
The combustion in liquid rocket is never perfectly smooth, there are some fluctuations
of pressure, temperature, and velocities are present.

ROUGH COMBUSTION:
Rough combustion is defined as the Combustion that gives greater pressure fluctuation at a chamber wall
location which occurs at completely random intervals is called rough combustion.

POGO OSCILLATION:
Periodic variations of thrust, caused by combustion instability or longitudinal vibrations of structures
between the tanks and the engines which modulate the propellant flow, are known as "pogo oscillations"
or "pogo", named after the Pogo stick.
Three different types of combustion instabilities occur. Some of them are,
CHUGGING:
Chugging, the first type of combustion instability occurs mostly from the elastic nature of the feed
systems and due to low frequency in the feed system which ranges from 100-400 HZ. This can cause
cyclic variation in thrust, and the effects can vary from merely annoying to actually damaging the
payload or vehicle. Chugging can be minimized by using gas-filled damping tubes on feed lines of
high density propellants.
BUZZING:

This is the intermediate type of instability and its frequency ranges from 400-
1000HZ. This can be caused due to insufficient pressure drop across the injectors. It
generally is mostly annoying, rather than being damaging. However, in extreme
cases combustion can end up being forced backwards through the injectors. This can
cause explosions with monopropellants.

SCREECHING (OR) SCREAMING (OR) SQUEALING:

This is the third type of instability which has higher frequency of range 1000HZ and
above. It is mostly perplexing which occurs both liquid and solid propellant rockets.
This type is most destructing and has capability of destroying the engine much less
than 1 sec.

POPPING:
Popping is an undesirable random high amplitude pressure disturbance that occurs
during steady state operation of a rocket engine with hypergolic propellant. It’s one
of the pressure source triggering high frequency, instability in a rocket engine.

ELIMINATION OF POPPING:
The elimination of popping is usually achieved by re-design of the injector rather
than the application of baffles and absorbers.