No abstract

During missile system development, multidisciplinary design procedure is iteratively implemented based on the missile objective and target nature including internal ballistic, warhead function, and airframe configuration. By applying missile preliminary design, a good estimation for different design parameters can be obtained which will be useful through further detail design process. The aim of this paper is to build a preliminary design procedure for an unguided tactical missile that uses single-stage solid propellant motor to deliver a defined payload mass to a desired ground range. Based on data of available similar mature missile systems, two empirical formulas are developed to serve in the initial sizing of the missile with consideration of slenderness ratio, warhead mass, and desired ground range. Two different design concepts are implemented for tubular and star grains with different propellant compositions and chamber filling coefficients while the body-alone airframe configuration is adopted. The results demonstrate the capability of the proposed design procedure in defining the detailed design parameters. The impact of changing the propellant compositions and chamber filling coefficients on the obtained ground range is also explored.

In solid propellant rocket propulsion, the design of the propellant grain is a decisive aspect. The grain design governs the entire motor performance and, hence, the whole rocket mission. The ability to decide, during design phase, the proper grain design that satisfies the predefined rocket mission with minimum losses is the ultimate goal of solid propulsion experts. This study enables to predict the pressure time curve of rocket motor with star grain configuration and also to optimize the performance prediction tool through optimization methods to maximize its prediction efficiency. A hybrid optimization technique is used. Genetic Algorithm (GA) is first implemented to find the global optimum followed by Simulated Annealing (SA) optimization method to find the accurate local optimum. A program for predicting the pressure time curve of the rocket motor is created on MATLAB and then linked to GA-SA optimizers as an application on a case study. The purposed approach is validated against satisfying data. It is found that the developed optimized program is capable of predicting rocket motor performance (including the effect of erosive burning) with acceptable accuracy for preliminary design purposes.