Study on peristaltic continuous mixing conveyor for composite propellant slurry mixing

Abstract

In recent years, the demand for rocket launching has increased due to the development of space technology. However, using inexpensive rockets is not always possible. Although the cost of solid-propellant rockets is relatively reasonable, safely manufacturing a large amount of solid propellant is difficult, and the manufacturing process is disjointed. Therefore, safe and continues manufacturing of solid propellant is necessary. On the basis of the movements of the intestinal tract, we proposed that the movements required for transport and mixing of solid propellants are possible to achieve without the application of a large shear force. The peristaltic motion enables not only the mixing but also conveying even high viscosity slurry. By mimicking these intestinal movements, we have considered and developed the peristaltic pumping by driven artificial muscle as one of the candidates for the continuous and safety mixer. In this research, the mixing completeness of the composite solid propellant slurry by the peristaltic pumping mixer was estimated. The result showed that the mixer we proposed could mix the propellant slurry. In the propellant samples, these variances were sufficiently small. An appropriate combustion state as a solid propellant was confirmed.

Keywords

• composite propellant
• continuous mixing
• peristaltic motion
• pneumatic actuator