Combustion of Thermites in Reduced Gravity for Space Applications

Alvarez, Francisco M.; Delgado, Armando; Frias, Jorge; Rubio, Mario; White, C.; Swamy, Ashvin Kumar Narayana; Shafirovich, Evgeny

doi:10.2514/1.t3876

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The less dense alumina floats to the top of the crucible and is discarded. More recent studies have demonstrated that copper-based thermite reactions can enable welding of copper conductors under reduced gravity in space [5], and self-propagating thermite reactions have been observed in thin multilayered foils [6][7][8][9][10][11]. The combination of a foil geometry and the release of large heats and molten products suggests there is potential for utilization of thermite reactions as very local heat sources for joining.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The utilization of metal/metal oxide core-shell powders to enhance the reactivity of diluted thermite mixtures

Woll

Gibbins

Slusarski

et al. 2016

Combustion and Flame

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When thermite mixtures combust considerable amounts of gas can be released which impedes their application in the field of joining. Diluting the thermite mixture with excess metal can lower the reaction temperature and thereby minimize mass ejection. However, increasing the degree of dilution reduces reaction efficiency. This paper demonstrates that the reduction of reaction efficiency is significantly less for the Al:NiO thermite system if the excess metal (Ni) is added using a fuel/core-shell mixture in which Al fuel particles are mixed with Ni/NiO core-shell particles. The use of Ni/NiO core-shell particles reduces the average distance for Al and oxygen intermixing by placing the fuel (Al) in direct contact with the oxide (NiO), separate from the diluent (Ni). Mixtures comprised of Al and Ni/NiO core-shell powders were fabricated, characterized, and compared to compacts fabricated using conventional Al, NiO, and Ni powders for dilutions up to 40 wt% Ni. The fuel/core-shell particle geometry increased combustion front velocities for all Ni dilutions. Mass ejection decreased uniformly for both particle geometries as the degree of dilution increased.

show abstract