Combustion characteristics of Al-Li alloy powder and its application in solid propellant

Abstract

This article is focused on the analysis of Al-Li alloy powder’s thermal oxidation reactivity. The Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis results show that the Al-Li particles are uniform and spherical. The phase transformation of the Al-Li alloy powder during the oxidation process was characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), the phase composition of the oxide alloy particles is mainly oxides such as LiAlO2 and LiAl5O8, indicating that the particles are fully burned. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TG) are performed coupled with thermodynamic calculations. The analysis results show that Li can reduce the activation energy required for the powder reaction, promote the combustion of Al powder, reduce the ignition temperature, and make the particles begin to oxidize at low temperature. At the same time, Li can shorter the ignition time of Al-Li alloy particles and improve the particles or propellant combustion characteristics. The results of this work demonstrate that fuel particle engineering for more complete combustion and energy conversion can be achieved by adding other elements and changing the powder formulation.