Experimental and Theoretical Extinction of Solid Rocket Propellants by Fast Depressurization

Dynamic burning of solid rocket propellants following fast depressurization of the combustion chamber was studied experimentally. Extinction boundaries were constructed for different sets of values of the controlling parameters (such as initial pressure, final pressure and depressurization rate). Most experimental results were collected by testing a nonmetallized, ammonium perchlorate based, composite propellant (AP83/CTPB16/Al2O3). Experimental results show that, for a given final pressure, an extinction boundary in terms of maximum depressurization rate vs initial pressure can be constructed by go/no-go testing. The objective was to check experimentally the analytical predictions of dynamic extinction boundaries obtained by this research group for finite size disturbances. A good agreement was found between analytical, numerical, and experimental results.