Experimental Investigation on burning behaviour of different Propellants in Closed Vessel of Gas generator Cartridge for water-jet application

Abstract

Gas generator cartridges gives certain specified performances to operate various mechanisms related to aircraft. The propellants used in this cartridge under study are utilised in destruction of doubtful improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by generating high speed water-jet. The novelty in this research article is that, it is attempted to find out the various internal ballistic parameters of single base propellants and double base propellants in the form of powder. The outputs from closed vessel (CV) evaluation of gun propellants are maximum pressure, differentiation of pressure with respect to time, average vivacity, force constant, rise time, pressure index including burning coefficient. The ballistic parameters of single base propellant & double base propellants are evaluated in CV. The double base propellant gives more pressure (290.1 MPa) than single base propellant (253.5 MPa). The rise time for single base propellant (0.46 ms) is less than that of double base propellant (0.38 ms) which indicates that it burn fast. The study is undertaken to see behaviour of different propellants burning in CV at same loading density of 0.2 g/cc. Both the propellants gave the same performance considering the end use i.e. destruction of IEDs. After analysis of the results, it is recommended that double base propellant should be used as it is safe during manufacturing, more storage life and possesses more energy in terms of force constant. This paper describes the experimental investigation on burning behaviour of single and double base propellant and approach adopted for comparative performance of propellants in CV. From this study it is concluded that both the propellants can be used for disruptor application after conduct of experimental trials.