An Elementary Calculation of the Combustion of Solid Propellants

Abstract

An Elementary Calculation of the Combustion of Solid Propellants. The problem of the burning of a solid propellant is treated in an approximate manner by prescribing the spatial distribution of energy rdease in the gas phase. Adoption of this inverse approach converts the usual non-linear problem to a linear eigenvalue problem which is easily solvable. Results for concentrated combustion (a flame front) and special cases of distributed energy release are given. Qualitative aspects such as flame stand-off distance, flame thickness, and various components of heat transfer within the combustion region are clearly shown. Examination of the influence of energy loss by radiation from the solid-gas interface gives satisfactory agreement with previous computations based on the non-linear formulation. An application to the problem of unsteady burning, and the response to pressure fluctuations is discussed briefly. The ease with which useful results can be obtained seems to justify the imperfect nature of the analysis.