UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS OF ULTRASONIC METHODS FOR MEASURING BURNING RATE OF SOLID PROPELLANT

Abstract

The ultrasonic burning rates measurement of solid propellants has been studied for many years to replace the strand burner method. Because, ultrasonic method can be measured burning rates of solid propellants with wide range of pressure in a single test while strand burner method measures a burning rate per a constant pressure. However, uncertainty analysis of the ultrasonic method is need in order to replace the strand burner method. Especially, to verify reliability of ultrasonic methods for measuring burning rates of solid propellants, uncertainties of the measured burning rates by ultrasonic method need to evaluate with variation of pressure, TOF and initial thickness. So, in this study we evaluated uncertainties of ultrasonic methods of measuring burning rates of various types of solid propellants with two different methods for measuring TOF of the reflected signals: the zero‐crossing and the moving gate developed in this study. Furthermore, comparison of uncertainties of ultrasonic burning rate measurements using the two different TOF measurement methods were presented.