Experimental study on the temperature compensation effect of plasma in a 300 ml closed bomb

Abstract

The interior ballistic performance of conventional gun is influenced by ambient temperature greatly. In the case of low ambient temperature, the chamber pressure and muzzle velocity are relatively low; and in the case of high ambient temperature, chamber pressure and velocity are higher. The reason is that the propellant combustion performance is affected by ambient temperature. The burning rate is low at low ambient temperatures, and high at high ambient temperature. The interaction of plasma and propellant can change the combustion performance of propellant, reducing or eliminating the temperature sensitivity of propellant, and this is the temperature compensation effect of plasma. In this paper, plasma ignition experiment has been carried on in a 300 ml closed bomb, and the temperatures of propellant were at −40°C, 20°C, and 50°C. Experimental results show that by regulating the electrical energy of discharge, maximum pressure, propellant burning end time and pressure-time curves are roughly the same as the propellant temperatures is −40°C and 20°C. Compared with the high temperature, the maximum pressure increase by 21 Mpa and burning end time shortened by 4.2 ms, which means that the temperature compensation effect of plasma is very significant.