Regression rate and combustion performance investigation of aluminum metallized HTPB/98HP hybrid rocket motor with numerical simulation

Abstract

This paper attempts to research and predict the effect of the convention aluminum particle additives on the performance of the HTPB/98HP hybrid rocket motor with the numerical approach. The aluminum particle is injected to the flow field in form of droplet from the grain surface, and then simulated by the discrete phase model. A CFD code has been developed to solve the coupling mass, momentum and energy equations of gas and solid at the grain surface, as well as the initial parameters of the aluminum droplet. A good agreement exists between the calculated regression rate from numerical model and the experimental data, indicating that the accuracy of applying numerical approach to predict the characteristics of aluminum metallized HRM is acceptable. Series of static numerical simulation have been conducted to determine the effect of aluminum particle property on the combustion and specific impulse performance of the HRM. The regression rate increases with the weight fraction of convention aluminum particle, but shows no distinguished correlation with the particle diameter. The characteristic velocity and vacuum specific impulse display a strong dependence on the particle diameter. The results illustrate that the proposed numerical approach is potentially an effective tool for predicting and investigating the enhancement of the regression rate and performance of the HRM with the addition of aluminum particle.