Erosive Burning Modeling for Solid Propellant Rocket Motor

Abstract:
Many phenomena occur during Solid Propellant (SP) Rocket Motor (RM) firing, one of the most important is known as SP erosive burning, which occurs at the end of grain, during the earliest period of firing after ignition. Calculating and analyzing erosive burning rate are an essential requirement for evaluating SPRM performance parameters. Intensive theoretical investigations are performed for the prediction of erosive burning and RM internal ballistic parameters. Investigations help in minimizing experimental work, which is expensive, risky and time consuming.
This paper presents a SPRM erosive burning computer code with its mathematical simulation, based on heat transfer theory of Lenoir and Robillard. Results of modeling are compared with the results of experimental study and a satisfactory agreement is indicated by an error less than 5%. The experimental work is based on full-scale firing of artillery RM that has higher propellant filling coefficient (volumetric loading).
A comprehensive analysis of the erosive burning phenomena and simplified formula are presented. The presented simulation code can be considered as a powerful tool for design parameters and analysis of the erosive burning rate for SPRM.