Dynamic simulation of ignition, combustion, and extinguishment processes of HMX/GAP solid propellant in rocket motor using moving boundary approach

Abstract

Solid propellant burning rate, gas phase temperature, and condensed phase thickness depend on combustion chamber pressure, laser intensity, and propellant compositions. The ignition and combustion of solid propellants occur in three phases namely solid phase, condensed phase, and gas phase. In this study, moving boundary modeling was applied to each of the phases by coordinate transformation. This research includes modeling and dynamic simulation of the ignition and combustion of HMX/GAP, a high-energy material in the ratio of 8:2, with the gas phase of the combustion model consisting of 50 species and 234 reactions. The mathematical modeling used mass, energy, and momentum conservation equations, as well as constitutive equations for the moving boundary. Parametric studies were run under different operating conditions, with an initial temperature of 300 K, a pressure of 10–100 atm and a laser intensity of 100 W/cm2. A burning rate of 2.2 cm/s and a gas phase temperature of 2700 K were obtained under an operating pressure of 100 atm. Extinguishment of the solid propellant was rigorously analyzed in terms of dynamic simulation with various depressurization rates during combustion. This was carried out by depressurizing the solid propellant from 70 atm to 40 atm. Important factors of the extinguishment were discussed based on the mathematical model and various depressurization rates with parametric studies. At a depressurization rate of −8000 atm/s, the solid propellant was fully extinguished. From this study, one can identify the phenomenon for the extinguishment of HMX/GAP propellant using fast depressurization with rigorous mathematical model used for ignition and combustion.