Case Studies in Thermal Engineering (Oct 2023)

Thermal decomposition characteristics and thermal safety performance evaluation of HAN-based propellant under different external environmental stimulations

  • Limin Kang,
  • Feiyang Xu,
  • Jingping Liu,
  • Xingyu Shao,
  • Lin Jiang,
  • Yimin Luo,
  • Haolong Wang,
  • Jihong Shan,
  • Weimin Cong,
  • Chenguang Zhu,
  • Sen Xu

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 50
p. 103497

Abstract

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This research aims to investigate thermal characteristics and assess thermal hazards of hydroxylamine nitrate (HAN)-based liquid propellant using a combination of accelerating rate calorimeter and high-pressure differential scanning calorimetry. Adiabatic experiments revealed that the exothermic reaction initiated at 115.7 °C and a rise sharply was at 128.4 °C with a maximum self-heating rate of 164.3 °C/min and the exothermic event was accompanied by a pressure rise of 3.7 bar in 0.03s. The corrected values of adiabatic temperature rise and time to maximum rate were 605.6 °C and 1.46 min, which confirms the vulnerability of the propellant to undergo a catastrophic explosion. To prevent thermal loss prevention accidents, time to maximum rate was obtained as 24 h under 111.3 °C. The apparent activation energy calculated decreased greatly with the increase of storage temperature from 25 °C to 45 °C, and so did the thermal explosion temperature (Tb) and self-accelerating decomposition temperature (TSADT). Additionally, the linear relationship between Ea and T was E = 991.7–2.7904T. The reliability of TSADT prediction was validated through slow cook-off test. Furthermore, the propellant exhibited more violent thermal decomposition under high pressure, resulting in a higher peak power. The thermokinetic parameters related to this phenomenon were identified, specifically at pressure of 4.0 MPa.

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