Mechanical Erosion of Nozzle Material in Solid-Propellant Rocket Motors

Thakre, Piyush; Rawat, Rajesh; Clayton, Richard; Yang, Vigor

doi:10.2514/6.2010-615

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Another material removal process is the mechanical erosion caused by the impingement of alumina particles. This effect, however, is negligible in the throat region and downstream, as the particles travel almost parallel to the surface [16]. The dominance of chemical erosion at the nozzle throat is confirmed by the fact that the throat erosion rate declines as aluminum content increases.…”

mentioning

confidence: 90%

“…This model, based on the combined inviscid core flow and viscous boundary-layer flow equations, has been recently updated by Acharya and Kuo [10][11][12]. Recent studies on non-charring carbonbased composite nozzle materials based on full Navier-Stokes approaches have been carried out by different research groups [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. The same kind of analysis, which is based on coupling a Navier-Stokes solution with surface ablation, cannot be found in open literature for erosion modeling of charring composite materials such as silica-and carbon-phenolics in SRM nozzles.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Chemical Erosion of Carbon-Phenolic Rocket Nozzles with Finite-Rate Surface Chemistry

Bianchi

Turchi

Nasuti

et al. 2013

Journal of Propulsion and Power

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Ablative materials are commonly used to protect the nozzle metallic housing and to provide the internal contour to expand the exhaust gases in solid rocket motors. Because of the extremely harsh environment in which these materials operate, they are eroded during motor firing with a resulting nominal performance reduction. The objective of the present work is to study the thermochemical erosion behavior of carbon-phenolic material in solid rocket motor nozzles. The adopted approach relies on a validated full Navier-Stokes flow solver coupled with a thermochemical ablation model, which takes into account finite-rate heterogeneous chemical reactions at the nozzle surface, rate of diffusion of the species through the boundary layer, pyrolysis gas and char-oxidation product species injection in the boundary layer, heat conduction inside the nozzle material, and variable multispecies thermophysical properties. The results obtained with the proposed approach are compared with two sets of experimental data: subscale motor tests carried out for the space shuttle reusable solid rocket motor and the static firing tests of the second and third stage solid rocket motors of the European Vega launcher, which use carbon-carbon for the throat insert and carbonphenolic for the region downstream of the throat

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mentioning

confidence: 90%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical Erosion of Carbon-Phenolic Rocket Nozzles with Finite-Rate Surface Chemistry

Bianchi

Turchi

Nasuti

et al. 2013

Journal of Propulsion and Power

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“…This model, based on the equations of combined inviscid core flow and viscous boundary layer flow, has recently been updated by Kuo and Keswani 11 and Acharya and Kuo. 12 Recent studies based on full Navier-Stokes approaches have been carried out independently by different research groups for carboncarbon and graphite nozzles [13][14][15][16] as well as for carbon-phenolic nozzles. 5,17 Ommati et al 18 found that the ablation rate of short carbon fiber/phenolic composites increased as pressure of the hot gas applied over the surface increased during oxyacetylene flame test, which was determined by both experimentally and mathematically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermochemical erosion and thermophysical properties of phenolic resin/carbon fiber/graphite nanocomposites

Sabagh

Ahmad

Bahramian

2016

Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites

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The main objective of this work is an experimental investigation and an analytical modeling of ablation and to analyze the thermophysical properties of nanocomposites based on novolac resin/short carbon fiber/graphite nanocrystalline powders in oxyacetylene flame test. The composite consisting of 40 wt.% carbon fiber was prepared as reference sample of which matrix was modified with three different percentages (6, 9 and 12 wt.%) of nano-sized graphite powders as reinforcement. Ablation is calculated by mass balance equation. Some parameters in the ablation modeling are evaluated by simultaneous thermal gravimetric analysis technique. Results of this work show that ablation rates decrease by the addition of graphite powders. The theoretical ablation rates are 33–38% less than the experimental data analyzed by oxyacetylene flame tests. This difference is reasonable because the effect of fluid stream force of oxyacetylene flame that causes the thermomechanical erosion of the surface is omitted in theoretical calculations. Therefore the model only calculates thermochemical erosion. Also, the thermophysical properties change due to heating is analyzed. Moreover, in nanocomposite with 9 wt.% graphite nanopowders, the rate of ablation and thermal diffusivity coefficient decreased by 10% and 50%, respectively, and thermal stability increased by 12% compared to the reference sample.

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“…10 Recent studies based on full Navier-Stokes approaches have been carried out by different research groups. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] The throat erosion represents the second most important loss in the Space Shuttle Booster RSRM nozzle 20 after the loss due to two-dimensional and two-phase flow. However, as previously stated, the specific impulse loss caused by throat erosion is strongly dependent upon the size of the system and the duration of the firing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radius of Curvature Effects on Throat Thermochemical Erosion in Solid Rocket Motors

Bianchi

Nasuti

Onofri

2015

Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

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Ablative materials are commonly used to protect the nozzle housing and to provide the internal contour to expand the exhaust gases in solid rocket motors (SRM). However, erosion of ablative materials results in a throat area enlargement which reduces the chamber pressure and the thrust as well as the thrust coefficient due to the reduction of the expansion ratio. The specific impulse loss resulting from the nozzle throat erosion can be significant, especially for small-scale systems. To understand if throat erosion can be limited by suitable shaping of the nozzle contour, the present work addresses the study of the effect of the throat radius of curvature on the erosion behavior of graphite SRM nozzles for typical metallized propellants. The adopted approach relies on a validated full Navier-Stokes flow solver coupled with a thermochemical ablation model based on finite-rate chemistry. A shape change analysis is also conducted to determine how different nozzle contours are modified during the advancement of the erosion process. Results allow to quantify the overall performance increase that can be obtained by a suitable reduction of the throat radius of curvature.

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Mechanical Erosion of Nozzle Material in Solid-Propellant Rocket Motors

Cited by 6 publications

References 14 publications

Chemical Erosion of Carbon-Phenolic Rocket Nozzles with Finite-Rate Surface Chemistry

Chemical Erosion of Carbon-Phenolic Rocket Nozzles with Finite-Rate Surface Chemistry

Thermochemical erosion and thermophysical properties of phenolic resin/carbon fiber/graphite nanocomposites

Radius of Curvature Effects on Throat Thermochemical Erosion in Solid Rocket Motors

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