Download or read book Combustion Mechanisms of Heterogeneous Solid Propellants written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bulk of the research on this contract was concerned with the mechanisms that cause plateau burning of ammonium perchlorate/hydrocarbon (AP/HC) propellants. The long range goal is to identify the steps in the combustion process that dominate overall burning, and in particular to understand which of these steps in the combustion process lead to plateau burning. Burning alone, matrixes (mixture of binder, fine AP, and catalysts) almost always burn slower than the bimodal propellant at all pressures. The improved burning with a catalyst is probably due to both increased surface layer heat release and to catalytic break down of the large fuel vapor molecules which cause the flame to stand closer to the surface. Deflagration rate of the large AP particles is always lower than the propellant rate, and contributes little to overall rate, except in close proximity to the matrix where a hot stoichiometric diffusion flame occurs and (apparently) supports the marginal matrix burning, accounting for the higher propellant rate. Observations of local intermittency of burning seem to contribute to the low burning rate associated with plateaus and spontaneous quenches.