A New Erosive Burning Model of Solid Propellant Based on Heat Transfer Equilibrium at Propellant Surface

Abstract

Erosive burning refers to the augmentation of propellant burning rate appears when the velocity of combustion gas flowing parallel to the propellant surface is relatively high. Erosive burning can influence the total burning rate of propellant and performance of solid rocket motors dramatically. There have been many different models to evaluate erosive burning rate for now. Yet, due to the complication processes involving in propellant and solid rocket motor combustion, unknown constants often exist in these models. To use these models, trial-and-error procedure must be implemented to determine the unknown constants firstly. This makes many models difficult to estimate erosive burning before plenty of experiments. In this paper, a new erosive burning rate model is proposed based on the assumption that the erosive burning rate is proportional to the heat flux at the propellant surface. With entrance effect, roughness, and transpiration considered, convective heat transfer coefficient correlation proposed in recent years is used to compute the heat flux. This allows the release of unknown constants, making the model universal and easy to implement. The computational data of the model are compared with different experimental and computational data from different models. Results show that good accuracy (10%) with experiments can be achieved by this model. It is concluded that the present model could be used universally for erosive burning rate evaluation of propellant and performance prediction of solid rocket motor as well.