Combustion and Microexplosion of Al/Liquid Fuel Slurry Droplets(I)-Ewperimental Study-

Abstract

The microexplosive combustion of a slurry droplet was investigated experimentally. The microexplosion has been approximately considered to be caused by pressure build-up in the shell and to be promoted by heterogeneous nucleation of liquid carrier, which is due to the suppression of evaporation and subsequent superheating of liquid carrier. To closely investigate the pressure build-up and the heterogeneous nucleation, the experiments were conducted in an electric combustor, of which temperature was controllable (400 K-900 K). And the effects of two aligned droplets on the interactive combustion and microexplosion were found in a hot post region of a flat flame burner. Transient internal temperature distributions for slurry droplets were measured. And the shell formation and the microexplosion of suspended A1/JP-8 and Al/n-heptane slurry droplets were examined with various surfactant concentrations (0.5-5 wt%) and solid loadings (10-50 wt.%). The microexplosion time of binary array of droplets was found to be less than that of the isolated droplet due to radiative interaction between droplets.