Effect of water to ablative performance under solid rocket exhaust environment

Abstract

The local environment during a missile firing is particularly hostile. Thermal protection of the missile launcher structure is often achieved with ablatives. Ablatives erode when subjected to high-temperature rocket exhaust, but the backside temperature of the protected structure remains relatively cool due to the insulative nature of ablatives. Multiple missile firings can completely erode the ablative, exposing the launching system components to an extremely high temperature. This investigation addresses the concept of injecting water into the missile plume to reduce the amount of ablative erosion per missile firing. This concept also reduces the amount of ablative materials needed in missile launching systems. Injecting water into the exhaust plume in a controlled laboratory environment was performed. Heat flux and material erosion measurements were compared in this study. kd